Bliss and Enlightenment by James Swartz

[Cobie]

 

 

9 hours ago, Daniel said:

Just so we're looking at the same thing, I'm seeing 'yu' …

yu4 , that narrows down the search. The Kroll entries are organised also on the ‘tone’ of the character, first tone first etc. ( I use numbers, Kroll uses ‘accents’, e.g. ma1/mā ; ma2/má ;  ma3/mǎ ;  ma4/mà ).

 

9 hours ago, Daniel said:

… 2015 edition, Kroll dictionary of classical and medieval chinese, Brill.

 

I have Kroll dictionary of classical and medieval chinese, revised edition, Brill, copyright 2017. 
 

Quote

… the character displayed in the screenshot on pg. 573, right column, 2nd from the top. 

 

In my copy, on pg. 573, right column, 2nd from the top:  裕 ( 衤+ 谷 )

The first character in the Henricks book (screen shot):  浴 ( 氵+ 谷 ) 

(in my copy, on pg. 572, left column, last entry).

 

On 22/08/2023 at 11:44 PM, Daniel said:

 

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Cobie

[Daniel]

@Cobie,  thank you!  First, In support of the distinction you're making and the careful study of the characters, chapter 39:

 

 

 

The author/scribe of this version certainly distinguished between the two characters, but the other versions do not.  If you check out ctext.org, chap 39 has identical characters here.  And, it's important to note, the comparison charts on daoisopen.com do not accurately relate these differences in spite of claiming to analyze the characters from the MWD.

 

Second, please look at the two pictures below from chap 6 and chap 32?  Do you think these two are the same character?  This becomes handwriting analysis.  I'm thinking they are.  And if I look at chap 39, I think that's the same character too.  If so, then I think the next step, as I said earlier, is to use context to discern the intended meaning of the character.  Process of elimination, from the distinction brought in chap 39, I think it's safe conclude it is *not* 'valley'.  If it were, there would be no difference in the characters in 39.  So, what is it?

 

Hopefully you understand why I was considering 裕, abundant, as a possible candidate?  It fits the theme of chap 5 & 6, both, nicely.  It's inexhaustble.  However, 浴, soaring, like a bird or a flock, might fit well too. 

 

Chapter 6:

 

 

From chapter 32:

 

 

 

All of that said, now that we are looking at the same thing, I agree, the character in question, looks to be a closer match to the character Kroll has on the bottom of pg 572, left column, rather than top of pg. 573 on the right column.  It's the two 45deg strokes compared to a perfectly horizontal stroke that I think makes the difference. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 4 by Daniel

[Cobie]

4 hours ago, Daniel said:

The author/scribe of this version certainly distinguished between the two characters, but the other versions do not. …

 

Apparently some take it 浴 stands for 谷 , and use 谷 throughout.
DIO has replaced the character, while Henricks has kept the original character but translates as if it’s the other one. 

 

There’s lots of debate on the right transcription of the original characters, e.g.

https://www.colorado.edu/faculty/richter-matthias/sites/default/files/attached-files/richter_towards_a_profile_of_graphic_variation.pdf

I don’t read stuff like that myself. I have no knowledge of palaeography and tend to use the characters in the Henricks book.

 

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… Do you think these two are the same character?  

 

Definitely. In all these cases the character is 浴 ( 氵+ 谷 ). Henricks merely uses another type font. 

氵 is the form of the water radical (水) when used in a compound character (it usually appears on the left).

 

~~~<>~~~
Re. 裕 ( 衤+ 谷 )

~~~<>~~~

This is an entirely different character, it’s not in the script. 

衤 is the form of the clothes radical (衣部) when appearing at the left side of a compound character.

 

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Cobie

[Daniel]

26 minutes ago, Cobie said:

Henricks merely uses another type font. 

 

I very much hope that the pictures in the book are actual pictures of the text found in the tomb.  Maybe that's silly. Feel free to laugh. 

 

Is this not the case?  You say Henricks is using another font?  Does that mean the images I'm looking at are **not** the actual text itself?

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Daniel

[Cobie]

 

 

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I very much hope that the pictures in the book are actual pictures of the text found in the tomb.  Maybe that's silly. Feel free to laugh. 

 

No worries, it took me many threads on OD to sort that one out.

 

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I very much hope that the pictures in the book are actual pictures of the text found in the tomb.  Is this not the case? 

 

No. See Henricks book page xv. Text A was written in “small seal” script; text B in “clerical” script.
 

WARNING  Don’t read the following paper, if you do you will never again think you know what the DDJ says. (cry emoji here) There’s an example, 聖 , top page 173 of https://www.colorado.edu/faculty/richter-matthias/sites/default/files/attached-files/richter_towards_a_profile_of_graphic_variation.pdf 

Anyway, the characters in the Henricks book (and also the ones on DIO) are a transcription; they are modern Chinese characters (but in the meaning as used in Classical Chinese).

 

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You say Henricks is using another font?  Does that mean the images I'm looking at are **not** the actual text itself?

The Henricks character and 浴 are both the same modern Chinese character, just another type font. Like the difference between A and A .
浴 is the transcription, it’s not the original on the silk.

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Cobie

[Cobie]

@Eduardo thanks for your ‘like’. 

[Cobie]

.

Edited August 29, 2023 by Cobie

[Cobie]

 

 

 

On 19/08/2023 at 6:17 PM, Daniel said:

I think we should move it to a new thread, quite honestly.  

 

I agree.

 

@dwai my sincere apologies for going so off topic. If you would like to, it would be great if this whole discussion could be split off and moved to my PPD, starting from this post: 

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Cobie

[wandelaar]

There is already a topic asking for a TTC translation containing pictures (that is: photographs) of the texts as they were found in the tomb:

I would still be interested in having such a book.

[Daniel]

14 hours ago, Cobie said:

I’m glad to see you embraced this idea.  

 

It fits, but, I'm not commiting to it as *the* intended meaning.  What I embrace is the method for analyzing the text in detail.

 

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But how did we get talking about Ch. 6? It was because you asked a question.

 

My question was about the bellows being a euphemism as described.  I wanted to see any other text of this genre using the bellows as a euphemism in this way.

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Daniel

[Daniel]

7 hours ago, wandelaar said:

There is already a topic asking for a TTC translation containing pictures (that is: photographs) of the texts as they were found in the tomb:

I would still be interested in having such a book.

 

thank you.

[Cobie]

.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Cobie

[Daniel]

5 hours ago, Cobie said:

 

 

Righto, I’ve deleted my posts. 

 

 

 

But why?  Why delete them?  

[Michael Sternbach]

22 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

But why?  Why delete them?  

 

Personally, I find it quite frustrating to come across an interesting thread in which half of the posts have been deleted. 😫

[Cobie]

[Giles]

On 06/07/2023 at 4:07 PM, dwai said:

Is enlightenment or self realization the same as the experience of limitless bliss?

When someone accustomed to identifying with the ever changing content of the mind wakes up to non-duality, the awakening is interpreted as a very positive event. When the mind reasserts itself, agitation and dullness reappear; when agitation and dullness are no longer acceptable, the mind becomes a seeker. The feeling of peace and bliss, which is an interpretation of non-duality by the mind, is brought on by the absence of suffering and not because awareness feels good. If you have been suffering a toothache for days and the tooth is extracted, it is the absence of pain that feels good, not the bliss of the extraction. You have actually just gone back to normal, not attained an exceptional state. 

Enlightenment does not feel like anything. It is simply the hard and fast knowledge that I am limitless, partless awareness. When this knowledge is firm, it has a very positive effect on the mind but it does not convert the mind into an endless bliss machine. However, it infuses the mind with a sense of authenticity, wholeness and rock solid confidence. Henceforth the individual knows that it can weather any existential storm. When you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are awareness, you no longer desire to feel good because you know you are the source of goodness. This is not to say that a more or less constant feel good happiness is not possible. It can be attained by the consistent application of self knowledge to the mind or by the practice of the yogas. 

When enlightenment or self realization is touted as the experience of limitless bliss, it is usually believed that the bliss of the self is superior to the transitory bliss encountered in daily life. But all experiences of bliss, whether they are born of sensory experience, the discovery of some unknown object or spiritual practice like meditation, are the fullness and limitlessness of the self reflecting in the body-mind. The bliss belongs neither to the self nor to the body-mind. It belongs to the relationship between them.

 

A review of James's book, The Essence of Enlightenment: Vedanta, the Science of Consciousness, by one of his former students:

 

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James Swartz often criticizes other teachers and their teaching. Although not criticizing the person, but the teaching. According to James, it is part of the vedanta tradition to oppose and criticize wrong ideas. Hopefully this is in line with such an attitude. In other words, nothing personal.

In fact I like James. I spent 3 years listening to his teaching daily. I organized a seminar with him and we worked together creating several illustrations for vedanta teaching. His teaching changed my life equally transformative as when I discovered yoga and meditation 40 years ago. He is a good teacher, with great humor and has a talent for teaching advaita vedanta to a western audience. Also he avoids or at least tones down, the guru circus so common. He comes across as a friend and guide. His teaching clarified for me a lot of confusion in the spiritual world and was a huge relief.

His basic idea, as I understand it, is that enlightenment is not an experience, but an understanding. I am already enlightened, so I cannot do anything to become something I already am. There is no awakening, because consciousness never slept. This cuts through the dominating dualistic spiritual materialism in most of the spiritual world of chasing exotic experiences to make my personal ego special. What a relief to get rid of that idea, which was the foundation of most of my spiritual search.

According to James, moksha is much more accessible than previously thought. All you need to do is crack the logic, understand the teaching and voila: Moksha!! Normal enlightenment time according to James is 2-3 years! Well, I am there now. I understand the teaching fairly well, but I am not enlightened. I realize that enlightenment or moksha is a much more subtle process. Understanding the logic is just the beginning of advaita vedanta.

Nobody is going to tell me that when yogis sit in caves for years and years that they do not experience anything besides endless boredom. Of course it is an experience. And probably they are blissed out of this world and prefer such an existence 1000 times to an ordinary life of searching for happiness here and there. Enlightenment is an experience beyond the mind. The intellect cannot go there, but intuition can. The way to get there is through meditation, a teacher, ethical training, sadhana and becoming thoroughly qualified. It is the third stage of the teaching, the integration or the nididhyasana phase. James is good on the two first phases, sravana and manana, listening and reflection, but seems to stop there, and claims moksha is achieved when you get that far. Then you can drop vedanta and go on living your life happily.

It is strange how James can deviate so much from his own teacher Swami Chinmayananda. According to James there is no awakening, no special states of experience, no path, nothing to be gained and no destination. Here is what his own teacher writes:

« Seeking is fulfilled only in gaining the sought. In its great Awakening, only when the ego merges into the Infinite Self, where nothing else exists, in the State of Aloneness is the goal reached, the destination arrived, the Supreme State of Total Satisfaction gained. In this Awakening alone, can all seeking end.» From Swami Chinmayananda commentaries on Astavakra Gita. p. 241.

It is obvious that James only takes one to the doorstep of Vedanta. In that, he does a good job. But he does neither introduce nor encourage or personally exemplify the nididhyasana phase which many teachers equals with intense meditation, sattvic lifestyle and other qualifications of an enlightened person mentioned in the scriptures again and again. There seems to be a great awakening and experience in the end of the rainbow of the spiritual search after all, but is not an experience in the normal sense. It is much more subtle, and beyond experience. It is a turning away from the world, seeing there is nothing there and embarking on an inward journey of much greater depth than James seems to present.

It is bad taste to critizise ones own teacher. I am very grateful for his teaching and I might misunderstand, but reading more of the works of his own teacher Swami Chinmayananda and his teacher Swami Sivananda, it is clear that there are huge discrepancies, where what James presents is an apple fallen quite a distance from the original trees. For the serious vedanta student, check it out for yourself and make your own judgment. There seems to be much more to vedanta and moksha than students of James is being presented. There is the third stage of the teaching of integration for those who are ready.

 

- Christian Paaske -

 

 

Source: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/1591812771/R1C0DN3JT26MLJ?ref_=cm_sw_r_mwn_dprv_0XV4TDHDQS3GFCYSXD8T&language=en_US

 

Remember, dwai: Brahman is Sat, Chit and Ananda...❤️

 

[dwai]

1 hour ago, Giles said:

 

 

Remember, dwai: Brahman is Sat, Chit and Ananda...❤️

Ah the old Ananda thing. It is not the experience of joy or bliss, though that is part of the package. What it means is contentment/fulfillment. Why? Because you already are what you were seeking in the world of names and forms. Sat, Chit and Ananda are one and the same. 

[Giles]

7 minutes ago, dwai said:

Ah the old Ananda thing. It is not the experience of joy or bliss, though that is part of the package. What it means is contentment/fulfillment. Why? Because you already are what you were seeking in the world of names and forms. Sat, Chit and Ananda are one and the same. 

 

 

... in your experience/opinion, dwai, presumably?

 

In my experience/opinion, "the old Ananda thing" is a useful marker, which eaily and definitely separates the wheat from the chaff. 😊

 

[dwai]

31 minutes ago, Giles said:

 

... in your experience/opinion, dwai, presumably?

 

In my experience/opinion, "the old Ananda thing" is a useful marker, which eaily and definitely separates the wheat from the chaff. 😊

 

It is a result of nidhidhyasana  

 

The experience of bliss becomes irrelevant after a while because the bliss becomes natural. It only stands out initially because it is something the seeker has not "experienced" in any extended manner until then. Do you think a "realized" person doesn't feel pain or sorrow? Do you feel that they are constantly high on a substance called "Ananda"?

 

In the words of Swami Sarvapriyananda (paraphrasing here), "If one doesn't feel anything, they are just brutes, not enlightened." 

 

 

Nidhidhyasana doesn't mean "meditation" in a yogic sense. It is the process of assimilating and digesting the teachings acquired through Sravana and the contemplative churning it unleashes in the mind (aka Manana). Sravana is all the teacher can do, while Manana and Nidhidhyasana are something that the individual has to do on their own.  It is the process of taking the intellectual understandings one derives from the teachings and making them real in their regular life. But the realization is a permanent perspective shift - from the limited being to that of unlimited awareness. After realization, it is a matter of how much preparatory work the seeker has already undergone to allow that realization to shine through. One who has done enough doesn't need to do much (krtopasaka). One who hasn't done enough needs to complete the process (akrtopasaka). 

[Giles]

9 minutes ago, dwai said:

It is a result of nidhidhyasana

 

You appear to be asserting that ananda has a cause.

 

11 minutes ago, dwai said:

The experience of bliss becomes irrelevant after a while because the bliss becomes natural.

 

 

Are you claiming to be in a permanent state of irrelevant bliss?

 

[dwai]

5 minutes ago, Giles said:

 

You appear to be asserting that ananda has a cause.

No, I'm saying that the realization that the general understanding of Ananda as constant Bliss that is experienced is wrong, and that realization comes from rigorous nidhidhyasana. 

Quote

 

Are you claiming to be in a permanent state of irrelevant bliss?

 

I'm saying that Ananda is not a state. Any bliss that occurs is merely a phenomenal experience. The body and mind acclimate to it. 

 

P.S. It would be interesting to inquire whether Ananda is a State of Bliss and from whose perspective.

Edited July 24 by dwai

[Giles]

2 minutes ago, dwai said:

No, I'm saying that the realization that the general understanding of Ananda as constant Bliss that is experienced is wrong, and that realization comes from rigorous nidhidhyasana.

 

 

What realization, enlightenment or some other realization?

 

3 minutes ago, dwai said:

I'm saying that Ananda is not a state. Any bliss that occurs is merely a phenomenal experience. The body and mind acclimate to it. 

 

So you're asserting that ananda is merely a phenomenal experience, as opposed to a direct experience of Brahman as SatChitAnanda?

 

[dwai]

Just now, Giles said:

 

What realization, enlightenment or some other realization?

Realization of our True Nature -  it can be called Self-realization, or Tattva Jnana, or Brahma Jnana. 

Just now, Giles said:

 

So you're asserting that ananda is merely a phenomenal experience, as opposed to a direct experience of Brahman as SatChitAnanda?

 

There is no "direct experience" of Brahman as SatChitAnanda since Brahman is not a thing that can be experienced.

[Giles]

1 minute ago, dwai said:

Realization of our True Nature -  it can be called Self-realization, or Tattva Jnana, or Brahma Jnana. 

 

Can we agree to label it as "enlightenment" too, or not?

 

If not, I'm happy to use the term Self-realisation, which, to me, is synonymous. 😊

 

3 minutes ago, dwai said:

There is no "direct experience" of Brahman as SatChitAnanda since Brahman is not a thing that can be experienced.

 

 

My understanding of the Advaita Vedanta position is that the nature of Brahman is SatChitAnanda.

 

Am I mistaken, in your opinion?

 

[dwai]

52 minutes ago, Giles said:

 

Can we agree to label it as "enlightenment" too, or not?

 

If not, I'm happy to use the term Self-realisation, which, to me, is synonymous. 😊

Enlightenment is a loaded word, I much rather use Self-realization

 

Quote

 

My understanding of the Advaita Vedanta position is that the nature of Brahman is SatChitAnanda.

 

Am I mistaken, in your opinion?

 

Not at all. Brahman is SatChitAnanda, and you are that. However, misunderstandings arise when we expect to experience Brahman or SatChitAnanda. Consider this: Do we at present (or at any time) experience ourselves? It is the self that experiences.

 

Simply from a logical perspective, if you *are* Brahman, how can you experience Brahman? How can honey experience its sweetness? How can fire experience its hotness? How can water experience its wetness?

 

Experience only arises when there is a subject experiencing an object. But Brahman is not an object - hence, it can't be experienced. Self-Realization is like this - How do you know you have eyes? Simply by seeing. Similarly, you know you are Brahman by realizing that your true nature is Existence (Sat), Consciousness (Chit), and Fullness/Completeness (Ananda). Usually the realization stems from one aspect - Existence, or Consciousness. The complete realization arises when one realizes that to be Existence means to be Consciousness, or vice versa. And to be Existence and Consciousness means to be indivisible (there are no parts - hence Complete/Full). When there can be no parts, nothing is ever missing. Since nothing is ever missing, there is fulfillment/contentment. When there is fulfillment/contentment, there is the absence of unhappiness. 

 

People often mistake Happiness for a state of experience. It is not - it is the absence of unhappiness. Unhappiness is due to the perception that something is missing, which sets the person seeking fulfillment of that missing part - chasing after things, experiences, people, etc. 

 

P.S. The human condition is such that there is a "void" that one yearns to fill with things, experiences, relationships, etc., outside (pravritti). However, that "void" is a faint remembrance of our True Nature, obscured by the conditioned mind. So, when the mind turns inward (nivritti), and contemplates on its source, the realization follows thence. That process of turning inward and contemplating on its source is called Self-inquiry (Atma vichara). 

Edited July 24 by dwai