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Mahayana & Atman
taiyaki
Veteran
I've been doing some research about Atman and it's relation to the Mahayana schools of Buddhism.
It seems that consciousness without an object is the best description for Buddha nature.
This buddha nature is the same as Atman.
What seperates Hinduism from Buddhism is the wisdom that the Buddha realized.
So I am thinking that the Buddha prior to being a Buddha realized Atman. But this Atman wasn't the end of suffering. So he broke down this Atman.
This corresponds with the zen ox herding pictures. Where the man finds the ox (awareness) and trains it. Eventually both the ox and man are dropped.
So what I am getting at it that Buddha nature or Atman can be grasped at as a "transcendental watcher" that is beyond all conditions. This luminious, open, and spacious quality of awareness can be grasped at as the unconditioned awareness or Atman.
So really the only way to penetrate Atman is to see it clearly. From here the wisdom of Emptiness and the Three Marks help disect Atman so that we no longer have this Atman as self view.
Rather everything in it's nature is ungraspable, unlocatable, self aware, clear, spacious, luminious.
Thus the end of becoming or nirvana is just the complete end of making self views and subtle graspings of consciousness/awareness.
Because there are only the 6 streams of consciousness.
Your thoughts?
It seems that consciousness without an object is the best description for Buddha nature.
This buddha nature is the same as Atman.
What seperates Hinduism from Buddhism is the wisdom that the Buddha realized.
So I am thinking that the Buddha prior to being a Buddha realized Atman. But this Atman wasn't the end of suffering. So he broke down this Atman.
This corresponds with the zen ox herding pictures. Where the man finds the ox (awareness) and trains it. Eventually both the ox and man are dropped.
So what I am getting at it that Buddha nature or Atman can be grasped at as a "transcendental watcher" that is beyond all conditions. This luminious, open, and spacious quality of awareness can be grasped at as the unconditioned awareness or Atman.
So really the only way to penetrate Atman is to see it clearly. From here the wisdom of Emptiness and the Three Marks help disect Atman so that we no longer have this Atman as self view.
Rather everything in it's nature is ungraspable, unlocatable, self aware, clear, spacious, luminious.
Thus the end of becoming or nirvana is just the complete end of making self views and subtle graspings of consciousness/awareness.
Because there are only the 6 streams of consciousness.
Your thoughts?
0
Comments
Are you saying Atman is a meditative experience? And then we analyze it as 6 consciousness?
I have read the yogacara view of consciousness as eight. The manas is the 'I' and eight is seed consciousness not too sure what it exactly is. During the buddhist path the manas gets transformed and then takes on a different activity.
Eight Consciousness wikepidia
Just something that came to my mind. I might be off the mark. Master Sheng-yen talks about realising one-mind and then dropping it, thus arriving at no-mind.
At first it was ego. Then to the witness. Then to presence. Then to the oneness, which is the witness dissolving into presence. Then even that is let go.
The subtle grasping isn't conceptual anymore, but rather it is at the level of body and the level of emotions. Thus even further opening occurs until there is final cessation, which occurs when there is no longer grasping.
but all the forms arise and fall still, just no grasping.
Thus samsara and nirvana are just merely separated by grasping.
What happens when we even accept grasping?
I read the article on 8 consciousness. i understand the 6 to be the gross consciousness. i've also heard that there are subtler consciousness. i've never experienced them, so i cannot talk from experience.
i'll have to do some further inquiring. for now there is only the 6 streams of consciousness. time to research some more!
but this is just my assumption based on researching subjective experiences of a PCE or pure consciousness experience verse the direct perception of emptiness.
buddha nature just describes all of reality, rather then objectifying it into something. emptiness of emptiness!
I'm waiting for Vajraheart to weigh in on this.
I do agree that Nirvana is simply the cessation of grasping, and of afflictive emotions, nothing mystical or magical.
I’m not sure I understand everything you’re saying but I think that’s it, roughly. There are only processes.
And so what is Buddha? What is Enlightenment? What is the reason for Bodhidharma coming from the West?
Lao Tzu says something like; When we put a name on the Dao, that’s not the Dao.
I think we’re in the same position. When we put a name on it and categorize it; we’re just “making waves where there is no wind”.
I never feel comfortable when I try to explain my religion to someone who is completely unfamiliar with zen/buddhism.
I never can be precise about what it really is all about.
“Emptiness of emptiness” usually doesn’t come across lol.
In my opinion, the term buddha-nature is widely misused. As a matter of fact, I think that the words 'buddha' and 'buddhism' should NOT be used in english. Those words are dead and lost in misinterpretation. Why not 'supremely awakened being'?? One could even abbreviate it SAB. Im dead serious, though I know no one will listen.
Taiyaki, I cannot stress this enough, and people will absolutely not listen: ungraspable, unlocatable, unborn, etc, these are terms that describe things as they actually are... it's not talking about some obscure mental state which allows us to perceive things this way, it's talking about REALITY. Realizing that: This is how to practice, not with conjecture. Everything is ungraspable, unlocatable, extinct, whether we realize it or not.
Try to realize it with your regular, 1 + 1 =2, the mortgage is due, feed the cat, schedule the dental appointment, which brand of toothpaste should I buy, mind. Thats the mind that you want to force to realize this principle of emptiness which doesn't make sense. Dont let your mind start making up theories and this and that, just focus on this thing that doesnt make sense until you start to see it. and when you start to see it, trust me you'll know. You'll be doing cartoon backflips inside. It's just beyond imagination, utterly pure magic... and I barely know it at all.
You're a smart fella, and Hey, I'm just a regular joe, working 55 hours a week, not perfect, but I try, and I do say some well thought out things around here. Who better to listen take advice from?? honestly, i hate telling people what to do..I generally avoid it at all costs. I don't want followers. What do I have to gain from a this? I practice, consistently, IN SECRET. Why? Because I work and live in an inhospitable, violent environment. I practice alone, against all odds, no one knows. I dont copy what i say from modern fake pseudo-psych profiteering self proclaimed zen master books. This is personal advice to a friend, from experience. Seriously. Most of the 'modern' writings on 'buddhism' I have glanced at literally makes my eyes burn, i wince, I feel like I've smelled something foul, it's like burning plastic. I am so thankful that I found the real deal before possibly being innundated with this stuff.
I'm bringing this up because this false stuff i'm talking about likes to make you think that true understanding is in forming complex ideas. All the various things that sakyamuni referred to with numbers and groupings were usually finely detailing the ultimate principles... they're meant as (difficult) practices rather than concepts for you to hold and reference.
I followed the trail left by Fo-yan, who led me to Lin-chi and Hakuin, whose road led to Hui-neng, who introduced me to the lion, the bull of a man, who did not stop.
And again, according to the teaching, the six streams are equally as empty of existence as everything and anything else that can be spoken of.
My advice, get away from chasing and identifying 'higher mental states'. All that you're doing is creating mental images to reference. You might as well be vegging out to soap operas. Instead, attempt to realize the inconceivable, unbelievable principle of emptiness is true... the more you realize it with your everyday mind and NOT as an abstract principle, the more you will
be awestruck.
I guess i'm trying to understand what the models of teaching are pointing to and then seeing how they hold up in reality.
How does non dual awareness relate to presence? Why the emphasis on oneness in hinduism? What seperates the buddha from those who assert atman?
I have strong roots in both advaita buddhism. Slowly and surely my personal experience is pointing to the buddha as having insights into reality as it is, as the final truth.
Time to engage in the world.
taiyaki@ - burn, baby, burn.....
All things are on fire. The fire symbolizes decay by the process of burning away, which represents the decay inherent to all life in the realms of rebirth. This fire marks the first noble truth of suffering. Because of this fire, all life in the realms of rebirth is ultimately unsatisfactory, unfulfilling, and suffering (dukkha). The experience of dukkha is a perception of the mind, yet dukkha can be seen in everything. Because dukkha is of the mind, it can be overcome by the mind.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bits/bits073.htm
Don't be shy about putting forward your ideas, ocean. Fresh ideas are welcome.
I just came across a comment that some scholars in Japan say the whole Buddhanature concept was a later addition to the canon. So, who knows?
Clear awareness that is unlocatable, ungraspable, self aware, knowing without a knower. It isn't an essence nor an atman but just the clear mind of a buddha. Such knowing sees form in it spontaneous perfection as presence which is no different then the luminious quality of mind.
The ground itself is the lack of ground. Everything spontaneously self liberates. Luminous and ungraspable.
Just as an ant is in touch with its surroundings so are we and by opening to our environment we take action in the world. The problem is that mentally we are deluded, discouraged, and in some cased drugged. Thus we don't always have a skillful response.
So basicly due to the empty interconnected nature we can build on that through the eightfold path and overcome our dysfunctionality even if that just means acceptance and a wider perspective (for example our practice won't make us taller but it may give us acceptance :0) ). In other words since our nature is empty of a certain essence, that means we can change ourselves. Maybe not as fast as we would like hehe.
The Jewel Ornament of Liberation is the gradual path text for the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.
You might wonder what earth, spatulas, the oceans, and so forth are in terms of a world with the buddha nature? They are part of the form skanda of the sentient beings. For example the ocean is part of the form skanda of a fish.
DN-1 http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.01.0.bodh.html
With Metta.
We also know that buddha was not an author. And does not have a website. :J)
Is nirvana just correct view of samsara?
How does nirvana relate to emptiness, rigpa, and buddha nature?
Different poetic expressions of the same thing?
Of course we could just find out
So the nature of dreams is the functioning of the 7th and 8th consciousness while the other six shut down.
Thus a blind man will dream in sensations and sounsa rather than images because thy lack the imprints of memory in the 8th consciousness.
The 8th stream of consciousness is the basis for rebirth.
Attaining this already functioning nature gives the chance to change karma. Karma itself is thinking and has no inherent self nature.
So in mahayana he attainment or realization of buddha nature allows one change their karma and realize emptiness. Going beyond both nirvana and samsara.
Buddhanature or Tathagatagarbha is the emptiness of all sentient beings, specifically. It's the seed of potential in all sentient beings to realize Dharmakaya. This seed is basically the emptiness of your own self.
Dharmakaya is the "realization" of the empty and interdependent nature of all beings and things, of which always is and was the truth of things. Thus dharmakaya is said to be unborn in this sense. It's still not meant to be grasped at as an eternal, self existing Self of all though.
But what use is all this? Just pedagogy.
Buddhism is all about freedom and the hearts opening$
1) Because beings might be discouraged from working hard. They might think buddha is *like* a god and that they are stupid or unworkable somehow. But the buddha nature teaching shows them that they have the same nature as buddha
2) When an error is made, a sin, we realize that our error is not our self. Our self is emptiness and thus the error can be overcome.
3) When another person sins against us. We realize that they are not a sinner they are also empty of qualities and thus we can act from compassion that they have made a mistake rather than think that they *are* evil
4) When we have knowledge we do not become arrogant towards others. I'm not talking about anyone on the forum in specific I think we have all been there. But we realize we are no higher than any other being in nature.
For these four reasons: encouragement, forgiving our mistakes (and correcting), forgiving others mistakes, and prevent arrogance. For those reasons the notion of buddhanature can be helpful.
It's about merging the right and left hemispheres of the brain, not negating one for the other.
Here's what some of my Pali books translated into english say about the atman - a fixed unchanging ego that passes from life to life.
So this week my GF was off to Prague, I'd been feeling sorry for myself thinking I was going to be on my own for a while so I bought some wine went to a mates, got drunk threw up and thought screw it I'll just play video games for a while. A couple of days of this and I thought all this sucks - its Dukkha, I'm going to get back on the Zafu for a while and read some Dharma.
I'd talk to some folks about this sound I'd been hearing since I was meditating its kind of a ringing tone. Ajahn Sumedho talks about it he calls it the sound of silence and he says you can relax into it and enter a state of intuitive awareness and open up to whats really going on.
So I read his book and this really deep sense of calm comes upon me things start to get really chilled and witchy for a few days, I really start to open up and see things, towards the end of it I can almost see my mind in real time, I'm outside its normal bounds and I'm just accepting whats going on in it.
So I'm in this state where I can see the conditioned mind but outside it. When the bubble popped and I come out of it I find myself thinking maybe thats what the advaitans call big self you know. But a little while later I find myself thinking well no because that sate of awareness has no sense of self its just aware.
Anybody care to give me some idea of what was going on?
From that point of view all phenomena is felt as presence. Penetrate this presence with emptiness.
Then oneness, clarity, presence will be seen as the qualities of everything. Here is nothing within, yet everything as there is looking outwards.
The tendency is to grasp and formulate an essence out of this clear luminous mind. Hete is where the wisdom of emptiness is very important as this will bring about a letting go.
Surrender and accept this moment as it is. Don't try to recreate anything. Just embrace everything as it is all already empty, ungraspable, luminous and self aware.
Remember you never can lose that because it is already what is. Just accept what is.
I honestly believe once we have a satori, the lens can never close all the way.
I hope you rest into the deep peace found in the groundless. If anything can be seen then it is an object. Even the watcher is an object. All object are not graspable and not mine.
Wish you well!
I concur with everything Taiyaki has said... I honestly don't know if I can add upon the wisdom he has expressed. I agree, it's time for a really highly realized teacher who can literally look at you and intuit what practices you may need directly as you stand in front of him or her.
This is what happened to me. Upon meeting my teacher, I asked him about my eczema and he looked at me and said it was my liver and that I should do the water mantra "Bam ho shudhe shudhe" and imagine the white light of the pure radiance of the water element while I take a shower all through my body, and guess what... my eczema went away within 1 week, never to return. This was 6 years ago when I met my Dzogchen Rinpoche, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu. Before that I was practicing a Tantric Shaivite path and the practices didn't seem to understand the elements nearly as much even though I had high level samadhis happen through the path, it didn't feel as grounded and integrated and was more geared towards the long lived god realms. Thus I had been battling my eczema since 1997, and it finally went away in 2005 upon my very first meeting with this Dzogchen Master and by following his instructions, I have been healed in many ways. That's just one example of the power of a realized master who thinks, sees and feels without letting himself get in the way. They truly have a more objective view of life around them and the people that make themselves open to these beings will only benefit. There are lots of these masters around in various Buddhist traditions, so I don't say you should necessarily seek out my own Rinpoche, but... definitely find a good and grounded living example of your own highest ideals, this is deeply paramount!!!
My Rinpoche has come in my dreams before and told me to do this or that practice for this or that particular issue. It's quite beautiful! Having a heart connection like this is truly grand!
Following his teachings and methods have made me a far more self aware person, in the positive sense of that phrase.
Ma-tsu said, "To stop a baby from crying."
The monk said, "When the crying has stopped, what then?"
Ma-tsu said, "Then I teach, 'Not mind, not Buddha.' "
The monk said, "How about someone who isn't attached to either?"
Mat-su said, "I would tell him, 'Not beings.' "
The monk said, "And what if you met a man unattached to all things: what would you tell him?"
Ma-tsu said, "I would just let him experience the great Tao."
Assuming this was around the time of he buddha, the buddha being a very skillful and highly attained practitioner of hinduism. But he realized that there was still auffering this he refound the practice of insight meditation.
The buddha knew and realize atman. This however did not end suffering. With his concentration and exploration he arrived at a different insight which gave total freedom from suffering. What the buddha discovered far surpassed the hindu assertion of brahma, one essence.
It seems many have grasped the consciousness as an essence or a fixed permanent "thing". The buddha penetrated further and found everything to be utterly empty of inherent existence. Everything has no lasting quality, nor does anyhing satisfy, and all is flux. In this he found freedom.
Don't make atman or anatman. Whats left?
The buddha sat silent neither asserting or negating living the middle way.
Through both assertion and negation we come to just this. The circle is complete. The middle way between eternalism and nihilism. Both were just vehicles for correct view. And then even such view is pulled underneath us. Form is form and emptiness is emptiness.
Sorry if none of this makes sense. I'm just sharing words.
But we get caught up in faces, and memories, and sounds, and we react to them. So the practice is to with a warm gentle honest heart to recognize all those dharmas as dreams and say to them "just thinking". To appreciate without being blinded.
She says that if she dared she would give a whole dharma talk that nobody could understand, so that they would question.
Trungpa Rinpoche always talks about a soft spot. Tender. He says when people first wake up to that soft tender spot it is like they are a deer with a new growth of antlers. Fuzzy bumps and you don't know what they are for at first.
I prefer to hum I love you and you love me ....
I love the idea of bodhicitta as the functioning of luminous mind.
at first we force the issue, but then it is natural and spontaneous.
wisdom is compassion and compassion is wisdom.
Supposedly our Buddha nature is a potential we all have, but personally, I have issues with this concept and the way it is presented. Certainly smells like Atman to me.
Namaste
The Atman is equal to Brahman, the all encompassing absolute, so is a monistic idealism.
The theory of Buddhanature is deep and subtle, and the deep and subtle differences are what have to be understood. At times it may sound the same, but within the greater context of the Buddhist teaching, it is not. Subtle differences are still real differences when it comes to understanding and intuitive insight. The view of Atman as Brahman leads to absorption, while the view of anatman, dependent origination and emptiness leads to cutting through.
Buddhism is truly a marvelous vehicle!
The Buddha teaches:
These four types of individuals are to be found existing in the world. Which four?
There is the case of the individual who has attained internal tranquility of awareness, but not insight into phenomena through heightened discernment. There is... the individual who has attained insight into phenomena through heightened discernment, but not internal tranquility of awareness. There is... the individual who has attained neither internal tranquility of awareness nor insight into phenomena through heightened discernment. And there is... the individual who has attained both internal tranquility of awareness & insight into phenomena through heightened discernment.
The individual who has attained internal tranquility of awareness, but not insight into phenomena through heightened discernment, should approach an individual who has attained insight into phenomena through heightened discernment... and ask him: 'How should fabrications be regarded? How should they be investigated? How should they be seen with insight?' The other will answer in line with what he has seen & experienced: 'Fabrications should be regarded in this way... investigated in this way... seen in this way with insight.' Then eventually he [the first] will become one who has attained both internal tranquility of awareness & insight into phenomena through heightened discernment.
As for the individual who has attained insight into phenomena through heightened discernment, but not internal tranquility of awareness, he should approach an individual who has attained internal tranquility of awareness... and ask him, 'How should the mind be steadied? How should it be made to settle down? How should it be unified? How should it be concentrated?' The other will answer in line with what he has seen & experienced: 'The mind should be steadied in this way... made to settle down in this way... unified in this way... concentrated in this way.' Then eventually he [the first] will become one who has attained both internal tranquility of awareness & insight into phenomena through heightened discernment.
As for the individual who has attained neither internal tranquility of awareness nor insight into phenomena through heightened discernment, he should approach an individual who has attained both internal tranquility of awareness & insight into phenomena through heightened discernment... and ask him, 'How should the mind be steadied? How should it be made to settle down? How should it be unified? How should it be concentrated? How should fabrications be regarded? How should they be investigated? How should they be seen with insight?' The other will answer in line with what he has seen & experienced: 'The mind should be steadied in this way... made to settle down in this way... unified in this way... concentrated in this way. Fabrications should be regarded in this way... investigated in this way... seen in this way with insight.' Then eventually he [the first] will become one who has attained both internal tranquility of awareness & insight into phenomena through heightened discernment.
As for the individual who has attained both internal tranquility of awareness & insight into phenomena through heightened discernment, his duty is to make an effort in establishing ('tuning') those very same skillful qualities to a higher degree for the ending of the effluents*.
— AN 4.94
*Effluents: Mental effluent, pollutant, or fermentation. Four qualities — sensuality (sensual attachments/cravings and aversion), views (false views pertaining to self and other related extreme views), craving for becoming, and ignorance — that "flow out" of the mind and create the flood of the round of death and rebirth.