We live by concepts

[Taoist Texts]

10 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

He had a happiness in concentration, but he gave that up, constantly, to teach.

so he was unable to teach while in concentration. hmm...

[doc benway]

10 hours ago, C T said:

"The tögal practitioner works directly with the clear light that dwells inherently, “spontaneously present,” within all phenomena, using specific and exceptionally powerful exercises to reveal it within himself or herself.Tögal has a quality of instantaneousness, of immediate realization." (Rigpa wiki) 

 

 

 

Perhaps we differ in our understanding of energy work. 

 

Tögal, at least the way I've been instructed, can only be practiced when one is fully resting in the nature of mind.

If subject-object duality is present, something that is necessary for someone to do work of any kind, tögal is no longer being practiced. 

Tögal visions are, by definition, visions that arise in the absence of subject-object duality. 

So I tend to separate tögal practice from other subtle energy practices for this reason. 

 

[C T]

 

Maintaining isolation in a secluded place: If we examine well, this is conceptual meditation.

~ Garab Dorje

 

Patrick Quinn's elaboration on the above quote - "I think the instruction is quite clear: MAINTAINING seclusion is contrived.  Because it is. You'd have to be totally aware and confident about what contrivance is first, of course, and this can really only come after long intensive retreat.

 

If realization has arisen, then trying to control your surroundings is actually quite manipulative and samsaric.  If you have true realization it blossoms as absolute bodhicitta and its entire purpose is the liberation of all beings, and no need to "protect" or even regard a self we know not even to be there." 

 

Knowing the limits of conceptual mind is a type of wisdom accumulation. It's imperative that such limits are recognised to avoid what Trungpa calls, "Spiritual materialism". All concepts, by default, are constructed within samsara, and serves its function within samsara. This is by no means a disparagement of concepts. What it means is that its vital to know when to be stubborn, critical, even cynical, but equally important, to know when to let go. Doesn't mean what is let gone cannot be readopted. Skillful means provide this safety net. 

 

Gautama's last words: Everything that is constructed is impermanent. Be diligent in striving for your own emancipation. (Mahaparinibbana Sutta D16) 

 

 

[liminal_luke]

As a practitioner develops a capacity to abide more and more in the present moment, nakedly aware of things as they are, the tendency to live primarily in the abstracted space of the intellect falls away, and with it the predilection to sort things into baskets of good and bad.  Or at least this is my understanding.  Surely one of the concepts that falls away is the mistaken notion, common in some spiritual circles, that there's something "wrong" with the conceptual mind.

[C T]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

As a practitioner develops a capacity to abide more and more in the present moment, nakedly aware of things as they are, the tendency to live primarily in the abstracted space of the intellect falls away, and with it the predilection to sort things into baskets of good and bad.  Or at least this is my understanding.  Surely one of the concepts that falls away is the mistaken notion, common in some spiritual circles, that there's something "wrong" with the conceptual mind.

 

The fear actually is the seeming comfort 'living' mired among the habit of conceptual dependence that stuckness happens, often just beneath the surface of awareness. Not so much that conceptual mind is wrong; rather, its the clinging to concepts that entails much confusion. And conflict too. 

[Mark Foote]

7 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

those tangents are interesting but not what I was trying to get at... what I meant was that "being a light unto oneself" can be equated with being of self guidance to one's self but since he took some key and important guidance from a celestial being such does not jive with his statement of implied reliance only upon himself for guidance/light,   (I don't have the related scripture at the moment)

I know the sermon you're referring to, old3bob.  Yer right, a celestial being appeared to Gautama, and upbraided him for his reticence to teach.

Is it any wonder that the naked ascetic Gautama first encountered after his enlightenment said, "good luck", and walked on!

 

My personal impression is that Gautama could dink with his pineal gland, there on the sphenoid, and that was the source of the psychic phenomena he experienced.  Certainly, there's a chapter on the development of psychic power in volume V of Samyutta Nikaya, where he gave the following advice:

 

So he abides fully conscious of what is behind and what is in front.
As (he is conscious of what is) in front, so behind: as behind, so in front;
as below, so above: as above, so below:
as by day, so by night: as by night, so by day.
Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy.
 

(SN V 263, Pali Text Society vol V p 235)

 

 

With regard to the last line, he explained that a person “cultivates (their) mind to brilliancy” when that person’s “consciousness of light is well grasped, (their) consciousness of daylight is well-sustained.” 

Pineal gland, isn't it?  Jives well with John Upledger's notion of cranial-sacral fluid volume rhythm, and subtle movement of the sphenoid.

So yes, you're quite right, how was he following his own advice to be a lamp onto himself?--except that his advice to "trust no authority but one's own" was tempered by his explicit qualification that being a lamp onto oneself was:
 

(one) continues, as to the body, so to look upon the body that (one) remains strenuous, self-possessed, and mindful, having overcome both the hankering and the dejection common in the world (similarly for the feelings, the mind, and the mental states).

 

 

I looked it up.  It was Brahma Sahampati that appeared to him ("Aryan Quest", MN Vol I).  I've never known what to make of Gautama's acceptance and affirmation of psychic phenomena, especially when he lists one of the six miracles possible as "stroking the sun and moon with the hand".  Uh-huh.  Predicting how people will be reborn, until he got so sick of his attendant Ananda asking him how people were reborn that he told Ananda just to figure it by how they lived their life.

 

Gautama was a man of India, a man of his times.  I tend to think of his teaching in terms of before and after:  before the suicide of scores of monks a day due to his having advised them to meditate on "the unlovely" (aspects of the body), and after, as when he convened the monks after the suicides and advised them that his way of living ("the intent concentration on inbreathing and outbreathing") was a thing “peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too (Sanyutta Nikaya V PTS pg 285)”.

Forget about enlightenment.  Go with the sixteen elements of mindfulness he described, including the contemplation of the cessation of ("determinate thought" in) action of inhalation and exhalation.

I think that was an acknowledgement of the impossibility for most of his followers of attaining the concentration associated with Gautama's enlightenment, the conscious cessation of "determinate thought" in feeling and perceiving.  After all, Gautama had studied under two of the foremost teachers of his day, who had not attained to that cessation (they were the first people he thought to share his news with, but they had both passed away).

 

It's not necessary to attain that cessation, and with it a certainty of dependent causation and the nature of suffering, Gautama's enlightenment.  I would surmise, based on my experience, that most Zen masters don't attain that cessation.  They are familiar with relaxed calm and the detachment of mind that makes the witness of automatic activity in inhalation and exhalation possible.  When they speak, you can see them return to that when they pause, they know a way to use their minds that refreshes their minds even if they don't witness the ceasing of perception and sensation regularly (if at all), the effortlessness of that has drawn them in.

 

 

[Apech]

16 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

Say I believe that a subtle body is made of nadi’s/channels in flow and their points of interaction, are you saying these are just concepts? I’m still not quite clear on what you’re saying. 

 

I am challenging the idea 'just concepts' for a start.

 

16 hours ago, Bindi said:

Do you consider the neidan ‘foetus’ or immortal body or golden body etc to be a beyond concept model, or is this an exception? 
 

edit to add:
Do “concepts” equal “mentation” or mental activity? 
 

How can you know what the subtle body is comprised of if you haven’t actualised it, unless you have? 

 

What I have been trying to say is that the 'beyond concept' coheres all mutually defining concepts around it in a state of indestructibility, like the facets of a diamond.

[Mark Foote]

7 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

so he was unable to teach while in concentration. hmm...

Right, that's my understanding.  Open the mouth to speak, exercise volition and interrupt the natural movement of breath, no one-pointedness of mind. 

Compassion, and the extension of the mind of compassion to the four quarters and around the world-- the "excellence of the heart's release" through the extension of the mind of compassion, the first of the further concentrations.  He had to speak, Brahma Sahampati made him do it, right?  Maybe more thorazine?  Why do people take vows of silence?

In the Vinaya, there's a rule explicitly forbidding monks from taking vows of silence at retreats.  Gautama upbraided a group of monks who did that, saying that there were people who need to hear the dhamma.

He said that those who correctly practice “mindfulness of death” apply his teachings “for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food”, or “for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out”.  I think that's telling, in that he's referring to the moment when the movement of breath may seem to be interrupted, and yet "one-pointedness of mind" is presumably still possible, so that automatic activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation can somehow still incorporate these things. 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

4 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

As a practitioner develops a capacity to abide more and more in the present moment, nakedly aware of things as they are, the tendency to live primarily in the abstracted space of the intellect falls away, and with it the predilection to sort things into baskets of good and bad.  Or at least this is my understanding.  Surely one of the concepts that falls away is the mistaken notion, common in some spiritual circles, that there's something "wrong" with the conceptual mind.
 

 

The four elements of the sixteen that Gautama said belonged to "mindfulness of mind":

 

Aware of mind I shall breathe in. Aware of mind I shall breathe out.”
 

(One) makes up one’s mind:
 

“Gladdening my mind I shall breathe in. Gladdening my mind I shall breathe out.

Composing my mind I shall breathe in. Composing my mind I shall breathe out.

Detaching my mind I shall breathe in. Detaching my mind I shall breathe out.

 

(SN V 312, Pali Text Society Vol V p 275-276; tr. F. L. Woodward; masculine pronouns replaced; all sixteen, see Appendix--From the Early Record)
 

 

I. B. Horner's translation prescribes more experience than action (but some, "concentrating thought", "freeing thought"):

 

One trains oneself , thinking: ‘I will breathe in… breathe out experiencing thought… rejoicing in thought… concentrating thought… freeing thought.’

 

(MN III 82-83, Pali Text Society III p 124; all sixteen, see Old Habits)
 

 

Shunryu Suzuki:

 

So, when you practice zazen, your mind should be concentrated in your breathing and this kind of activity is the fundamental activity of the universal being. If so, how you should use your mind is quite clear. 

(“Thursday Morning Lectures”, November 4th 1965, Los Altos)

Edited June 4, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

48 minutes ago, Mithras said:

What a band of idiots, I've never seen so many dogs barking at the same house waiting for it to blow down!
 

 

Chang Wu-tzu said, "Even the Yellow Emperor would be confused if he heard such words, so how could you expect Confucius to understand them? What's more, you're too hasty in your own appraisal. You see an egg and demand a crowing cock, see a crossbow pellet and demand a roast dove. I'm going to try speaking some reckless words and I want you to listen to them recklessly. How will that be? The sage leans on the sun and moon, tucks the universe under his arm, merges himself with things, leaves the confusion and muddle as it is, and looks on slaves as exalted. Ordinary men strain and struggle; the sage is stupid and blockish. He takes part in ten thousand ages and achieves simplicity in oneness. For him, all the ten thousand things are what they are, and thus they enfold each other.

 

(The Complete Works Of Chuang Tzu, tr Burton Watson; emphasis added)

 

 

Wuf.  

[Indiken]

1 hour ago, Mithras said:

What a band of idiots, I've never seen so many dogs barking at the same house waiting for it to blow down!

 

@steve ?

[doc benway]

45 minutes ago, Indiken said:

 

@steve ?

 

Thanks 

[old3bob]

22 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

I know the sermon you're referring to, old3bob.  Yer right, a celestial being appeared to Gautama, and upbraided him for his reticence to teach.

Is it any wonder that the naked ascetic Gautama first encountered after his enlightenment said, "good luck", and walked on!

 

My personal impression is that Gautama could dink with his pineal gland, there on the sphenoid, and that was the source of the psychic phenomena he experienced.  Certainly, there's a chapter on the development of psychic power in volume V of Samyutta Nikaya, where he gave the following advice:

 

So he abides fully conscious of what is behind and what is in front.
As (he is conscious of what is) in front, so behind: as behind, so in front;
as below, so above: as above, so below:
as by day, so by night: as by night, so by day.
Thus with wits alert, with wits unhampered, he cultivates his mind to brilliancy.
 

(SN V 263, Pali Text Society vol V p 235)

 

With regard to the last line, he explained that a person “cultivates (their) mind to brilliancy” when that person’s “consciousness of light is well grasped, (their) consciousness of daylight is well-sustained.” 

Pineal gland, isn't it?  Jives well with John Upledger's notion of cranial-sacral fluid volume rhythm, and subtle movement of the sphenoid.

So yes, you're quite right, how was he following his own advice to be a lamp onto himself?--except that his advice to "trust no authority but one's own" was tempered by his explicit qualification that being a lamp onto oneself was:
 

(one) continues, as to the body, so to look upon the body that (one) remains strenuous, self-possessed, and mindful, having overcome both the hankering and the dejection common in the world (similarly for the feelings, the mind, and the mental states).

 

I looked it up.  It was Brahma Sahampati that appeared to him ("Aryan Quest", MN Vol I).  I've never known what to make of Gautama's acceptance and affirmation of psychic phenomena, especially when he lists one of the six miracles possible as "stroking the sun and moon with the hand".  Uh-huh.  Predicting how people will be reborn, until he got so sick of his attendant Ananda asking him how people were reborn that he told Ananda just to figure it by how they lived their life.

 

Gautama was a man of India, a man of his times.  I tend to think of his teaching in terms of before and after:  before the suicide of scores of monks a day due to his having advised them to meditate on "the unlovely" (aspects of the body), and after, as when he convened the monks after the suicides and advised them that his way of living ("the intent concentration on inbreathing and outbreathing") was a thing “peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too (Sanyutta Nikaya V PTS pg 285)”.

Forget about enlightenment.  Go with the sixteen elements of mindfulness he described, including the contemplation of the cessation of ("determinate thought" in) action of inhalation and exhalation.

I think that was an acknowledgement of the impossibility for most of his followers of attaining the concentration associated with Gautama's enlightenment, the conscious cessation of "determinate thought" in feeling and perceiving.  After all, Gautama had studied under two of the foremost teachers of his day, who had not attained to that cessation (they were the first people he thought to share his news with, but they had both passed away).

 

It's not necessary to attain that cessation, and with it a certainty of dependent causation and the nature of suffering, Gautama's enlightenment.  I would surmise, based on my experience, that most Zen masters don't attain that cessation.  They are familiar with relaxed calm and the detachment of mind that makes the witness of automatic activity in inhalation and exhalation possible.  When they speak, you can see them return to that when they pause, they know a way to use their minds that refreshes their minds even if they don't witness the ceasing of perception and sensation regularly (if at all), the effortlessness of that has drawn them in.

 

so more interesting stuff but  I'm not that up on those complications, anyway I'd say that the celestial being was his own soul just like the Buddha was, thus not just a figment of the Buddha's imagination if that is what you were implying?  

Edited June 5, 2023 by old3bob

[Mark Foote]

14 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

so more interesting stuff but  I'm not that up on those complications, anyway I'd say that the celestial being was his own soul just like the Buddha was, thus not just a figment of the Buddha's imagination if that is what you were implying?  
 

Did not mean to imply that Sahampati was a figment of Gautama's imagination, only that the connection to the experience of psychic phenomena may be through heightened activity in the pineal. 

Certainly, many of the other miracles Gautama described appear to be a part of the general lore of other cultures (though how it got to be so, I think is uncertain).  Walking on water, diving through the earth as though it was water, floating on the air--miracles recounted in many cultures.

I have a friend who, one day, heard a knock on his door.  When he opened it, three men came in, and sat with him at a table making conversation for hours.  He finally asked them to leave--they said, "are you sure?", and when he said yes, they just walked out through the wall.  Datura, of course.

Don't think Gautama was doing datura, or anything else.  He had followers who purportedly could make it rain, and one chief disciple who could generate earthquakes with his toe, but Gautama said his only miracle was his ability to teach others.  What, then, to make of his psychic radio, informing him as to whether someone was a once-returner, a never-returner, a stream-winner, or what.  Realizing that his past teachers were dead, after his enlightenment, and seeing Brahma Sahampati.  

I identify with the notion that the action occasioned by "determinate thought", or volition, somehow returns to the individual.  That it doesn't actually move the state of the universe, but returns the "do'er" to find action again in the absence of volition (wúwéi, "effortless action").  Even if there is no abiding essence, or soul, that retains the personality, there is this principle at work in the universe--that's my belief.
 

"If you go right ahead, you cannot move a step."--Bodhidharma to Huike

("Transmission of the Lamp", Denkoroku, tr Cleary, Shambala p 111) 

[Apech]

Been a bit busy last couple of days, well busy for me which is probably restful ease for most. But I see that I got the expected responses to my thoughts on concepts. It's a fallacy, mere concepts, useful things to be disposed of and so on. I don't agree with any of them as I think they are all abstractions from reality. By reality I mean the whole of that which we deal with, which is reducible to the the essential core and also elaborated to whatever degree you might want. Real means that which you can analytically pull to pieces without it losing its essential nature and which you can construct to whatever level you might wish, without it stopping being essentially itself.

 

Essentially I am equating 'real' with Dao or Dharmakaya or brahmen … the absolute. This I am saying is beyond concept, or is not a conceptualised state. It is indestructible because it is never constructed. Unborn because it is not produced by other causes. Ineffable because you cannot say in words, concepts what it is.

 

Then we have ideas or what I have called big ideas which hold together sets of ideas in themselves – these are concepts. As living beings, created beings if you like, we use ideas to orientate ourselves, to describe ourselves and our world, to construct understandings of what is happening to us and so on. Some ideas correspond precisely to the order in life. And there is order in life – an order born of the hierarchical relations between forms, material forms and ideas. Any statement made about ourselves or the world can be understood through the pattern of ideas presented.

 

If we start with Dao, then we have Heaven and Earth – meaning polarised yang and yin realms which interact with each other (as in the image of the great bellows or a drum). Each of the ten thousand things has an image (heavenly originated) and form (earthly) – in Buddhism this is namo/rupa. These 'things' dance to the rhythm of the great bellows of Heaven and Earth. Which is the origin of the changes – the patterns of existence. The images are the ideas – that is finely patterned energy (qi) which interact with substance (earth) to produce the reality in which we have our being.

 

Both our physical and subtle bodies have form produced by the heavenly images giving structure to the earthly substance. In this way we live by concepts.

 

 

 

[Taomeow]

In the heaven phenomena take form; on earth shapes take form. -- Ta Chuan

In the human world, they get bent out of shape. -- Ta Om Eow 

 

Illustration: Rene Magritte, "Personal values."  

 

[old3bob]

6 hours ago, Apech said:

Been a bit busy last couple of days, well busy for me which is probably restful ease for most. But I see that I got the expected responses to my thoughts on concepts. It's a fallacy, mere concepts, useful things to be disposed of and so on. I don't agree with any of them as I think they are all abstractions from reality. By reality I mean the whole of that which we deal with, which is reducible to the the essential core and also elaborated to whatever degree you might want. Real means that which you can analytically pull to pieces without it losing its essential nature and which you can construct to whatever level you might wish, without it stopping being essentially itself.

 

Essentially I am equating 'real' with Dao or Dharmakaya or brahmen … the absolute. This I am saying is beyond concept, or is not a conceptualised state. It is indestructible because it is never constructed. Unborn because it is not produced by other causes. Ineffable because you cannot say in words, concepts what it is.

 

Then we have ideas or what I have called big ideas which hold together sets of ideas in themselves – these are concepts. As living beings, created beings if you like, we use ideas to orientate ourselves, to describe ourselves and our world, to construct understandings of what is happening to us and so on. Some ideas correspond precisely to the order in life. And there is order in life – an order born of the hierarchical relations between forms, material forms and ideas. Any statement made about ourselves or the world can be understood through the pattern of ideas presented.

 

If we start with Dao, then we have Heaven and Earth – meaning polarised yang and yin realms which interact with each other (as in the image of the great bellows or a drum). Each of the ten thousand things has an image (heavenly originated) and form (earthly) – in Buddhism this is namo/rupa. These 'things' dance to the rhythm of the great bellows of Heaven and Earth. Which is the origin of the changes – the patterns of existence. The images are the ideas – that is finely patterned energy (qi) which interact with substance (earth) to produce the reality in which we have our being.

 

Both our physical and subtle bodies have form produced by the heavenly images giving structure to the earthly substance. In this way we live by concepts.

 

 

 

 

we could make it simple and just use an example like,  the sun is real and a ray from it is also real....or the absolute is real and an emanation from it is also real.

 

(btw there are different but similar spellings for,  Brahman aka absolute,  and Brahmin a member of the priestly caste.  although Brahman is sometimes used for Brahmin which I don't believe is really correct,  and so there is no "brahmen".  Also Lord Brahma the creator/god aspect, is not Brahman which newcomers to Hinduism sometimes get crossed-up )

Edited June 6, 2023 by old3bob

[Mark Foote]

9 hours ago, Apech said:

... I see that I got the expected responses to my thoughts on concepts. It's a fallacy, mere concepts, useful things to be disposed of and so on. I don't agree with any of them as I think they are all abstractions from reality. By reality I mean the whole of that which we deal with, which is reducible to the the essential core and also elaborated to whatever degree you might want. Real means that which you can analytically pull to pieces without it losing its essential nature and which you can construct to whatever level you might wish, without it stopping being essentially itself.

 

You have confused me, somewhat.  Are you saying that the expected response was "it's a fallacy, mere concepts, useful things to be disposed of"?  I'm assuming that.
 

 

Quote

 

Essentially I am equating 'real' with Dao or Dharmakaya or brahmen … the absolute. This I am saying is beyond concept, or is not a conceptualised state. It is indestructible because it is never constructed. Unborn because it is not produced by other causes. Ineffable because you cannot say in words, concepts what it is.

 

Here, I think, you may run into trouble.  These ideas have a parallel in mathematics, in the theory of sets.  What is the set that includes all sets--is it a member of itself?  Paradoxes like this led the Intuitionist school to break off from the traditional, in the early twentieth century.  The Intuitionists rejected the law of the excluded middle, in logic, because of the contradictions that result from its adoption (either a set is a member of itself, or it is not).

 

In the early 1930's, Godel demonstrated that any axiomatic system that allows the whole of what is known in mathematics to be derived from it, also allows contradictions to be derived.  Conversely, any axiomatic system that doesn't allow contradictions to be derived, cannot allow all that is known to be true in mathematics to be derived.  Godel seemingly reconciled the use of the excluded middle in logic, provided "If a statement is false, then there must exist a counterexample showing its falsity"--so, not simply "true, and if not true then false", but "true, or there exists a counter-example", if not true only false if you have a counter-example.

What that says to me is that any attempt to formulate a set of all sets, a Dao, is bound to introduce contradiction at some point. 

Gautama said that the initial states of concentrations were marked by "equanimity with respect to multiplicity (in the senses)", and the further states prior to the cessation of ("determinate thought" in) feeling and perceiving" were marked by "equanimity with respect to uniformity (in the senses)".  The transcendence of "uniformity" by means of lack of desire results in "the cessation of feeling and perceiving".  The first three further states were "excellences of the heart's release" by means of the extension of the mind of compassion, of sympathetic joy, and of equanimity throughout the four quarters, above and below, without limit.  That feeling of extension beyond the boundaries of the senses and an associated equanimity with respect to uniformity is perhaps the basis of "Dao", or "the Great Spirit".

Actual union apparently requires the lack of desire for union, and the passage through the confusingly named "neither perception and sensation nor yet not perception and sensation" to "the cessation of perception and sensation"--at least, it did for Gautama.

Are these concepts useful?  Stranger than fiction.

 

 

Quote

 

... And there is order in life – an order born of the hierarchical relations between forms, material forms and ideas. 

 

Like Godel said, only to a point.  The real thing must always exceed any set of organizing principles.  That doesn't say that the selfless cause and effect can't be appreciated and partially described, and that to me is Gautama's teaching as regards concentration.  It's a partial description, but with regard to each of the states of concentration, he acknowledged that "whatever (one) imagines it to be, it is otherwise”.

 

Quote

 

If we start with Dao, then we have Heaven and Earth – meaning polarised yang and yin realms which interact with each other (as in the image of the great bellows or a drum). Each of the ten thousand things has an image (heavenly originated) and form (earthly) – in Buddhism this is namo/rupa. These 'things' dance to the rhythm of the great bellows of Heaven and Earth. Which is the origin of the changes – the patterns of existence. The images are the ideas – that is finely patterned energy (qi) which interact with substance (earth) to produce the reality in which we have our being.

 

Both our physical and subtle bodies have form produced by the heavenly images giving structure to the earthly substance. In this way we live by concepts.

 

Platonism?  The ideal behind the real?  I am with you that there are real relationships that may not immediately be evident, all around us and within us, and that we can form conceptual models that at least partially describe those relationships.  

If I understand correctly, the point you are making is that we can't actually dispense with those partial descriptions, we can't just write them off as something other than samadhi, something that just gets in our way.

Gautama described the sixteen elements of mindfulness that he said made up his way of living, and the 9th-12th elements he described he categorized by saying, "of mindfulnesses of the mind, this is one".  The four elements were thoughts to be applied and sustained in the course of an inhalation or an exhalation:  of the particular of thought, of joy in particular thought, of collecting thought, and of detaching from thought.

So, yeah, there's a rhythm of accepting/appreciating thought and detaching the mind, but to say that all concepts and thoughts are an obstacle, or to imagine that concentration exists without thought--good luck.   In the second of the initial states of concentration, thought is no longer applied and sustained--that doesn't say there is no thought, and we know that Gautama spent most of his time in the concentration with thought applied and sustained.  That's what it means, when he says the sixteen elements were his way of living, before and after enlightenment.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Mark Foote

[exorcist_1699]

It simply is whether people  believe that there can be a clear , persistent mindless Mind ?   If a man , during the whole of his life , is in sleeping and dreaming , then of course , he will think that , a clear , logical mind of reasoning is elusive and non-existent  no matter how hard we  try to explain to him  . Our mind * is extremely  delicate that  it can handle time ,  past and  present , its being cut into intervals, its stretch , contract and reverse ( theory of special relativity)   ,  can handle 10th dimensional space ( String theory),  can deal with self-contrary concepts ( Fuzzy logic ),  can  process its own formless form without any contents by making no efforts ( Zen ) . Through many levels of abstraction and by awakening into many higher degree of sanity that our mind uplifted and evolved . Nowadays , another new form of human's creation , Al , is emerging ,  and is said  to be going to defeat us because of its ability to processing countless  data  at extreme  fast speed  , that based on complicated algorithms beyond our reach ..;  but can AI work with no data, no rules and no algorithms , yet still offers  us a system of intelligence ?

 

*元精渺難睹

Edited June 7, 2023 by exorcist_1699

[Lairg]

10 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

"true, and if not true then false", but "true, or there exists a counter-example", if not true only false if you have a counter-example.

 

Leaving aside whether Reality is binary, I am always left with the question of context:  True to what/whom/when/where?

 

Truth is a reification.  Being true to some context is turned into an object independent of context.

 

If the human contains a thread of Beingness/Dao then the human-source is before Existence occurs.

 

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by Lairg

[Apech]

19 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

we could make it simple and just use an example like,  the sun is real and a ray from it is also real....or the absolute is real and an emanation from it is also real.

 

(btw there are different but similar spellings for,  Brahman aka absolute,  and Brahmin a member of the priestly caste.  although Brahman is sometimes used for Brahmin which I don't believe is really correct,  and so there is no "brahmen".  Also Lord Brahma the creator/god aspect, is not Brahman which newcomers to Hinduism sometimes get crossed-up )

 

thanks for the spelling correction - I don't know what I was thinking

 

[Apech]

14 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

You have confused me, somewhat.  Are you saying that the expected response was "it's a fallacy, mere concepts, useful things to be disposed of"?  I'm assuming that.
 

Yes I was expecting people to say those things.

 

14 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

Here, I think, you may run into trouble.  These ideas have a parallel in mathematics, in the theory of sets.  What is the set that includes all sets--is it a member of itself?  Paradoxes like this led the Intuitionist school to break off from the traditional, in the early twentieth century.  The Intuitionists rejected the law of the excluded middle, in logic, because of the contradictions that result from its adoption (either a set is a member of itself, or it is not).

 

In the early 1930's, Godel demonstrated that any axiomatic system that allows the whole of what is known in mathematics to be derived from it, also allows contradictions to be derived.  Conversely, any axiomatic system that doesn't allow contradictions to be derived, cannot allow all that is known to be true in mathematics to be derived.  Godel seemingly reconciled the use of the excluded middle in logic, provided "If a statement is false, then there must exist a counterexample showing its falsity"--so, not simply "true, and if not true then false", but "true, or there exists a counter-example", if not true only false if you have a counter-example.

What that says to me is that any attempt to formulate a set of all sets, a Dao, is bound to introduce contradiction at some point. 

 

The Dao isn't a set of all sets (IMO) it is beyond categorisation hence mysterious statements like it cannot be named i.e. it is not part of any set.  I recall Wang Bi called it the abstruse or mysterious origin and Buddhists shunya.

 

14 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

 

Gautama said that the initial states of concentrations were marked by "equanimity with respect to multiplicity (in the senses)", and the further states prior to the cessation of ("determinate thought" in) feeling and perceiving" were marked by "equanimity with respect to uniformity (in the senses)".  The transcendence of "uniformity" by means of lack of desire results in "the cessation of feeling and perceiving".  The first three further states were "excellences of the heart's release" by means of the extension of the mind of compassion, of sympathetic joy, and of equanimity throughout the four quarters, above and below, without limit.  That feeling of extension beyond the boundaries of the senses and an associated equanimity with respect to uniformity is perhaps the basis of "Dao", or "the Great Spirit".

Actual union apparently requires the lack of desire for union, and the passage through the confusingly named "neither perception and sensation nor yet not perception and sensation" to "the cessation of perception and sensation"--at least, it did for Gautama.

Are these concepts useful?  Stranger than fiction.

 

I'm not sure if they are useful.  I am wondering if my IQ has dropped below a certain threshold

 

14 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

 

Like Godel said, only to a point.  The real thing must always exceed any set of organizing principles.  That doesn't say that the selfless cause and effect can't be appreciated and partially described, and that to me is Gautama's teaching as regards concentration.  It's a partial description, but with regard to each of the states of concentration, he acknowledged that "whatever (one) imagines it to be, it is otherwise”.

 

Actuality exceeds any organizing principles .... well these principles would be concepts ... maybe we could use the image of a light with many lesser lights in orbit.  Then again that might be too rigid.

 

14 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Platonism?  The ideal behind the real?  I am with you that there are real relationships that may not immediately be evident, all around us and within us, and that we can form conceptual models that at least partially describe those relationships.  

If I understand correctly, the point you are making is that we can't actually dispense with those partial descriptions, we can't just write them off as something other than samadhi, something that just gets in our way.

 

 

The 'we' is the problem.  If we hold a concept of samadhi or even worse mistake a conceptualized samadhi for the 'real' thing, then we are blocked.  If we achieve samadhi ... then what do the concepts then look like to 'us'?  Maybe an equivalent would be a meditative absorption in which we no longer perceive our body - but then when we emerge there is our body still ... why is that?  Or to use the tantric terms ... on achieving buddhahood our body is the Nirmana Kaya and so on.

 

14 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

Gautama described the sixteen elements of mindfulness that he said made up his way of living, and the 9th-12th elements he described he categorized by saying, "of mindfulnesses of the mind, this is one".  The four elements were thoughts to be applied and sustained in the course of an inhalation or an exhalation:  of the particular of thought, of joy in particular thought, of collecting thought, and of detaching from thought.

So, yeah, there's a rhythm of accepting/appreciating thought and detaching the mind, but to say that all concepts and thoughts are an obstacle, or to imagine that concentration exists without thought--good luck.   In the second of the initial states of concentration, thought is no longer applied and sustained--that doesn't say there is no thought, and we know that Gautama spent most of his time in the concentration with thought applied and sustained.  That's what it means, when he says the sixteen elements were his way of living, before and after enlightenment.

 

I think I agree with that last paragraph.

[Apech]

4 hours ago, exorcist_1699 said:

It simply is whether people  believe that there can be a clear , persistent mindless Mind ?   If a man , during the whole of his life , is in sleeping and dreaming , then of course , he will think that , a clear , logical mind of reasoning is elusive and non-existent  no matter how hard we  try to explain to him  . Our mind * is extremely  delicate that  it can handle time ,  past and  present , its being cut into intervals, its stretch , contract and reverse ( theory of special relativity)   ,  can handle 10th dimensional space ( String theory),  can deal with self-contrary concepts ( Fuzzy logic ),  can  process its own formless form without any contents by making no efforts ( Zen ) . Through many levels of abstraction and by awakening into many higher degree of sanity that our mind uplifted and evolved . Nowadays , another new form of human's creation , Al , is emerging ,  and is said  to be going to defeat us because of its ability to processing countless  data  at extreme  fast speed  , that based on complicated algorithms beyond our reach ..;  but can AI work with no data, no rules and no algorithms , yet still offers  us a system of intelligence ?

 

*元精渺難睹

 

Until the Butlerian Jihad.

[Bindi]

On 5/6/2023 at 3:58 AM, Apech said:

 

I am challenging the idea 'just concepts' for a start.

 

 

What I have been trying to say is that the 'beyond concept' coheres all mutually defining concepts around it in a state of indestructibility, like the facets of a diamond.

The koshas or sheaths surrounding the Self as described in the Upanishads might say something like this, see: https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5307/kosha

 

Moving from one layer to the next takes decades IMO, at least it has for me. Moving from the mental/emotional layer to the intuitive layer is the equivalent to me of moving from the two subtle side channels to the central channel. This is why I agree with you to an extent that emotions (and thoughts) are the path, but to me they are only one part of the path, when it’s time the path becomes a deferral to intuition and the central channel. Whether emotions, thoughts and intuitions are all concepts I don’t know, I wouldn’t have called them that but maybe they are. 
 

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Bindi

[Lairg]

It seems that Intuition (heart knowing) occurs without mental process.  No concepts are used.  

 

I once was very deep in meditation and heard a voice.  It was immediately apparent that it was the voice of God.  There was no recognition process required.

 

As I re-emerged into physical consciousness I could not remember what He said.  No doubt He anticipated that.