Thoughts on Cultish Groups

[Taoist Texts]

33 minutes ago, Cobie said:

no ‘soul’ ?

sure man has a soul. it corresponds to the OS in the computer, the heavenly ming;). its a robotic soul.

[Cobie]

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Edited July 27 by Cobie

[Taoist Texts]

12 minutes ago, Cobie said:

what then becomes an ‘immortal’? 

your own person, with your individual life experiences, your memories etc. like all user files we have on the hard drive.

[Cobie]

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Edited July 27 by Cobie

[Apech]

1 hour ago, Taoist Texts said:

your own person, with your individual life experiences, your memories etc. like all user files we have on the hard drive.

What makes them more immortal than just an archive?

[Taoist Texts]

37 minutes ago, Apech said:

What makes them more immortal than just an archive?

excellent question. normally our files are recorded on a flesh and bones hard drive, our body, which is perishable. so we use the neidan process to manufacture an imperishable flash drive for them, known as the golden body or yang sheng or a vajra body.

[Cobie]

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Edited July 27 by Cobie

[Taoist Texts]

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

Does it in any way relate to the following?

yes, more or less

https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11125112

[Cobie]

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Edited July 27 by Cobie

[Taoist Texts]

56 minutes ago, Cobie said:

In the picture below, could one more or less say that the top circle area is the UDT (Upper Dan Tien), middle MDT, and lower LDT?

yes thats what those are:)

[Cobie]

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Edited July 27 by Cobie

[Apech]

5 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

yes, more or less

https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11125112

 

From the intro this looks like a gem - thanks.

[forestofclarity]

13 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

your own person, with your individual life experiences, your memories etc. like all user files we have on the hard drive.

 

This sounds like spiritualizing the ego (ahamkara for Vedanta, the mano- and alaya-vijnana in Mahayana), i.e., a subtle trap. 

 

 

[Nungali]

On 19/07/2024 at 3:47 PM, Taoist Texts said:

The answer is simple but requires accepting man for what he is - a bio-robot. His processor, the brain, is built in such a way, that vague, high-faluting, 'woolly'  speech gives him a jolt of physical pleasure, both speaking and listening to it. Its a hard-wired survival mechanism.

 

 

Hence the supply and demand for such. The cultish behavior, is secondary to it. Note that when asked to specify the wooly speech , the speechifier demurs, because it harshes his mellow. (always observed when i ask for specific examples or definitions).

yes thats it, the physical pleasure incentive. Modern biology calls it neurochemical

https://innermammalinstitute.org/your-neurochemical-self/

 

As Mr Krebbs and I where reminiscing the other day upon the Bokonist calypso-mantra ;

 

Tiger got to hunt.

Bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder why, why why.

 

Tiger got to sleep,

Bird got to land;

Man got to tell himself he understand.

 

 

 

[Nungali]

20 hours ago, Apech said:

What makes them more immortal than just an archive?

 

You can't unring a bell .

 

[Nungali]

19 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

excellent question. normally our files are recorded on a flesh and bones hard drive, our body, which is perishable. so we use the neidan process to manufacture an imperishable flash drive for them, known as the golden body or yang sheng or a vajra body.

 

" The Immortal Osiris"   .   ... one must  'become'  .

 

- In another thread I was making  ( abandoned as I perceived lack of interest )  where I began collating different beliefs about 'psychic anatomy' ( types and numbers of soul or parts of soul ) it can be seen that some systems see this as an  essential step , combining , 'processing' ,    a 'transition of magical memory to the light body '   or other struggling attempts to put the process  in English .

 

Conversely , if all your recording is done  on a 'perishable media' -   well, then   ............ 

[Taoist Texts]

17 minutes ago, Nungali said:

some systems see this as an  essential step

yes they do, thats right. but none has the right method, save neidan.

 

 

7 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

This sounds like spiritualizing the ego.........alaya-vijnana in Mahayana), i.e., a subtle trap. 

that is correct. it totally does. and it is the end goal of buddhism too.

 

According to Thomas McEvilley, although Vasubandhu had postulated numerous ālāya-vijñāna-s, a separate one for each individual person in the parakalpita,^{[note 2]} this multiplicity was later eliminated in the Fǎxiàng and Huayan metaphysics.^{[note 7]} These schools inculcated instead the doctrine of a single universal and eternal ālaya-vijñāna. This exalted enstatement of the ālāyavijñāna is described in the Fǎxiàng as "primordial unity".^[56]

Edited July 20 by Taoist Texts

[Cobie]

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Edited July 27 by Cobie

[Taoist Texts]

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

@Taoist Texts In the picture, do the red and blue (meandering and intersecting) lines relate to the MCO?

no, MCO is one line

[forestofclarity]

17 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

According to Thomas McEvilley, although Vasubandhu had postulated numerous ālāya-vijñāna-s, a separate one for each individual person in the parakalpita,^{[note 2]} this multiplicity was later eliminated in the Fǎxiàng and Huayan metaphysics.^{[note 7]} These schools inculcated instead the doctrine of a single universal and eternal ālaya-vijñāna. This exalted enstatement of the ālāyavijñāna is described in the Fǎxiàng as "primordial unity".^[56]

 

I think that's a thin reed. I also think it really gets down to practice. 

 

TRIGGER WARNING: SCHOLARLY CONCEPTS AHEAD

 

Certainly Vasubandhu taught the alaya was individual, and this is preserved in the Tibetan schools. I think at the end of the day, one needs to be walked through this experientially, but this is a wikipedia article quoting a scholarly non-practitioners, so let me quote some scholarly practitioners (which view, I would say, aligns with the Four Noble Truths unlike the neo-Platonic view suggested).

 

Initially, when Buddhist texts were being interpreted, many translators lacked an understanding of the context and general culture, so tended to conclude that Yogacara was akin to Western idealism. John Myrrdhin Reynolds points this out regarding E.E. Evans Wenz in his "Self-Liberation Through Seeing with Naked Awareness" for example. It seems to me that McEvilly (a art historian by trade, and not an expert in any type of Buddhism) takes in this analysis in his book. In other words, his scholarship in some regards is a bit dated (I think he makes a stronger case for the connections with Pyrrho and Madhyamaka). In his book, McEvilly states that Vasubandhu's alaya is close to Plotinus depiction of mind, and subsequent developments bring it in line with this. 

For example, Dan Lusthaus: 

 

http://www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/intro.html

 

Quote

When the Warehouse Consciousness finally ceases it is replaced by the Great Mirror Cognition (Mahādarśa-jñāna) that sees and reflects things just as they are, impartially, without exclusion, prejudice, anticipation, attachment, or distortion. The grasper-grasped relation has ceased. It should be noted that these "purified" cognitions all engage the world in immediate and effective ways by removing the self-bias, prejudice, and obstructions that had prevented one previously from perceiving beyond one's own narcissistic consciousness. When consciousness ends, true knowledge begins. Since enlightened cognition is nonconceptual its objects cannot be described. Thus Yogacarins provide no descriptions, much less ontological accounts, of what becomes evident in these types of enlightened cognitions, except to say they are 'pure' (of imaginative constructions).

 

Karl Brunnholzl wrote an epic book on this, Center of the Sunless Sky, specifically to refute much of this from an Indo-Tibetan point of view. 

 

His conclusion: 
 

Quote

 

Thus, the teachings on Buddha nature do not mean that there is some nucleus of Buddhahood enclosed in sentient beings behind the obscuring adventitious stains. Rather, our whole existence as sentient beings is in itself the sum of adventitious stains that float like clouds in the infinite, bright sky of Buddha nature, the luminous, open expanse of our mind that has no limits or boundaries. Once these clouds dissolve from the warm rays of the sun of wisdom shining in this space, nothing within sentient beings has been freed or developed, but there is just this radiant expanse without any reference points of cloudlike sentient beings or cloud-free Buddhas.

 

In brief, not only is there no statement in the texts of Maitreya, Asanga, and Vasubandhu that mind, the ground consciousness, any of the three natures, or even Buddha nature is really or ultimately existent, but this is precisely what is explicitly and repeatedly denied. This is also expressed in The Sutra of the Arrival in Lanka: Having thoroughly meditated on all phenomena being free from mind, mental cognition, consciousness, the five dharmas, and the [three] natures, Mahamati, a bodhisattva mahasattva is skilled in phenomenal identitylessness.

 

Most modern scholars who do not base their writings and research on Gelugpa presentations alone also agree that the essential purport of the system of Maitreya, Asanga, and Vasubandhu is not at all idealistic and that there is no claim of a really existing mind or other such entities. In fact, in much the same way as the Centrists, Yogacaras like Asanga and Vasubandhu introduce and employ expedient concepts, such as “mere mind,” only for the sake of dissolving previous ones. Once these concepts on different levels have fulfilled their purpose of redressing specific misconceptions, they are replaced by more subtle ones, which are similarly removed later in the gradual process of letting go of all reference points. The outcome of the above presentation is that the refutations in the Centrist texts of Mere Mentalism in general and of a really existing self-awareness or ground consciousness and so on in particular cannot be directed against the system of these masters. I have gone to some length here to provide evidence for this for two main reasons. First, it is quite an important point that Centrism and the lineage of vast activity are not mutually exclusive. Second is the need to redress the common but mistaken conflation of the lineage of vast activity with what Tibetans call Mere Mentalism, which invariably leads to its rejection.

 

 

One footnote: 

 

Quote

In general, most Western scholars have finally come to agree that it is completely wrong and misleading to refer to the Yogacara school as “idealist” in the sense that this term has in Western philosophy (for more details, see, for example, Harris 1991, Keenan 1989 and 1997, and Willis). In fact, this is a particularly obvious example of mistakenly trying to match specific terms of Western philosophy with Indian systems of thought. When I use “idealist” here, it is only in the sense in which Tillemans uses it: “2. If we wish to satisfactorily answer the question as to whether Yogacaras, like Dharmapala, were idealists, we must change our usual understanding of that term. A Buddhist idealist does not just accept mind-dependence or a reduction of existence to mind, but also that mind has a preferred ontological status and is more real than external objects. 3. While Dharmapala’s acceptance of the reality of mind qua paratantra does seem to make him an idealist in our revised sense, the structure of his system guarantees that any attempt to conceptualize or formulate what that mind is like or how it exists is impossible.” (1990, p. 68)

 

McEvilly cites in his book to the Shelung school. Most of the wikipedia articles on this cite to one article by Michael Radich. Radich goes to the source, Paramartha, who clearly says that the alaya is destroyed: 

 

Quote

Paramărtha understood amalavijñăna to be the counteragent to ălayavijñăna, and the two to be in a temporal relationship to one another, whereby ălayavijñăna existed only until liberation, and was then succeeded by fully realised amalavijñăna. 

 

But later authors just made up their own ideas: 

 

Quote

However, the fact remains that later authors only received a very vague and pared  down version of Paramărtha’s doctrine. Subsequent authors then often took the concept as raw material for their own constructive projects, or, in the interests of attacking or defending the notion, wove it into complex new networks of proof texts and various concepts. The result, as we have seen, is that the bulk of what was said about amalavijñăna by later authors was new. We have little grounds for confidence that these authors were well acquainted with any works by Paramărtha, upon which they based their comments.

 

However, I would bet that even these later authors would agree that the seeds of whatever consciousness need to be transformed or purified, and not preserved as suggested here. 

 

[Taoist Texts]

6 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

I think that's a thin reed.

of course it is, i just quoted it to show there are different opinions.

 

6 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

TRIGGER WARNING: SCHOLARLY CONCEPTS AHEAD

hehe, i love those, thanks

Quote

Certainly Vasubandhu taught the alaya was individual, and this is preserved in the Tibetan schools. I think at the end of the day, one needs to be walked through this experientially, but this is a wikipedia article quoting a scholarly non-practitioners, so let me quote some scholarly practitioners

great and good for them but what is the difference? are the latter ones buddhas? unless they are, theirs is just an opinion. It is great fun to debate what alaya is and what 'infividual' is in various later authors, asian and western but like you said

6 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

I also think it really gets down to practice. 

Exactly. And unless we concretely explain how the practice works first, all the concepts remain meaningless words salads like these

6 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

on Buddha nature do not mean that there is some nucleus of Buddhahood enclosed in sentient beings behind the obscuring adventitious stains. Rather, our whole existence as sentient beings is in itself the sum of adventitious stains that float like clouds in the infinite, bright sky of Buddha nature, the luminous, open expanse of our mind that has no limits or boundaries. Once these clouds dissolve from the warm rays of the sun of wisdom

whats the sun of wisdom? how is enclosed different from floating? whats a stain? why and how these are dissolved? is any of this in Theravada? wth does this rant even mean? it sounds like AI lol

6 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

I would bet that even these later authors would agree that the seeds of whatever consciousness need to be transformed or purified

yes i would bet that they do too, but unless they explain how exactly it is done it means they have no clue what they agree about.  Yet the crucial, square one, question is simple: I posit that the end goal of Buddhism is to immortalize the individual ego*  (and the western buddhism had no clue about it from the get go). Lets say you care to disagree. Then you should say what the end goal is in your understanding, yes?

 

*

• PHILOSOPHY

  (in metaphysics) a conscious thinking subject.

Edited July 21 by Taoist Texts

[Cobie]

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Edited July 27 by Cobie

[Apech]

2 minutes ago, Cobie said:

That makes more sense to me, as I think most people don’t want to die.

 

Apart from inability to translate the texts right and the ‘pompous bits’ effect, are there any other reasons for this misapprehension?
 

 

Deliberate wooling of the message.

 

(which bits were pompous?)

[Cobie]

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Edited July 27 by Cobie

[Apech]

3 minutes ago, Cobie said:

 

 

typo 

 

Your memory isn’t very good anymore? 

 

I forgive.