The double bind!!! May as well give up. :)
Earthninja
WandererWest Australia Veteran
Namaste all.
Ok so I've been on an inward journey and recently non self has been providing some answers. More towards the dissolution of questions.
I have a few associates on Facebook that provide me with advice as an enlightened being 
I thought id share this because it is starting to ring true.
Quote "awakening has nothing to do with tying to change things it is the end of trying
any ideas of effort or achievement or goal any doing or non doing simply perpetuates the illusion of separation ....of a do er..... yet knowing this intellectually will not stop the desire to do so....you are the desire to get this ..... it forms your lines....and there is nothing you can or cannot do to see that the lines are imaginary......
yer fucked"
So basically an imaginary person can not do anything or not do anything to see they are imaginary!
She also added that enlightenment is completely uncaused, it is a shift in perception that happens in the brain. There is nothing a person can do to reach it. Because all lines of separation are imaginary.
I laughed so hard when I read the above.
So on a practical note: as an imaginary person, I can never achieve enlightenment or whatever you want to call it.
I may as well try and look to what is real and what is not.
What do you guys think? Is this a path that leads in circles?
Comments
She also said that meditation has nothing to do with enlightenment.
That's good news!!! Hahahah. Screw those long hours of watching the breath,
Can "I" reach enlightenment ? Or am "I" the imaginary person ? It's a no-brainer (excuse the pun) meaning the answer's beyond neuron firing logic...But as usual I might well be wrong....
In certain circles
You might call it a circle, @Earthninja... I think others may call it a wheel....
'She' didn't say YOU are imaginary. Basically, what 'she' is saying is that all compounded phenomena, all perceptions (your 'lines) are 'imaginary'. Imaginary in the sense that they don't last, are impermanent and have no everlastingly solid, unchangeable essence...
I agree with her, here...
There is NO thing that is 'real'. Not even you.
That makes it subtly different to what semantically we would term 'imaginary'. I see what she's getting at, but I think you're taking the word imaginary too literally.
Round, like a circle....
Armchair Buddhist? Though meditating in an armchair is rather nice.
That makes it subtly different to what semantically we would term 'imaginary'. I see what she's getting at, but I think you're taking the word imaginary too literally.
I meant real as in direct experience
there is a body, there thoughts. They are real. An owner of them is make believe. 
That's what I meant by seeing what is real.
How am I taking it too literally?
You also said "'She' didn't say YOU are imaginary. Basically, what 'she' is saying is that all compounded phenomena, all perceptions (your 'lines) are 'imaginary'. Imaginary in the sense that they don't last, are impermanent and have no everlastingly solid, unchangeable essence..."
She said"
any ideas of effort or achievement or goal any doing or non doing simply perpetuates the illusion of separation ....of a do er..... yet knowing this intellectually will not stop the desire to do so....you are the desire to get this ..... it forms your lines....and there is nothing you can or cannot do to see that the lines are imaginary.
So she IS saying I am imaginary and so are you. Imaginary as in a story. The story can never find enlightenment. The story can not see itself as a story. Lines are what separates self from other, my leg from the couch. Hearing from sound. Those are the lines she us referring to. They are imaginary as in they don't actually exist any more than a story does. The story can not see this though. Only understand it intellectually.
If you read what she is saying again she means it literally.
Sounds like she needs a meditation practice.
It's quite a trick, making an illusion deluded.
The existent can be tricked into thinking it doesn't exist or that it exists differently than the reality but the non-existent can't be tricked into anything.
Being is not the illusion, being separate is.
So if this can't be understood conceptually and she doesn't believe in meditation as a means of approaching it non-conceptually, what's her solution? Does she have one, or is this all just intellectual meandering?
@SpinyNorman exactly what I was thinking! I'll ask her
The traditional Zen response would be to hit you on the head with a stick and say, "Can an imaginary person feel pain? Say yes and I will hit you again. Say no and I will hit you again. What are you going to say now, smarty-pants?"
This person is trying to give a great gift while knowing it will sit in a closet, unopened for now.
There is a difference between giving up and realizing there is nothing to be done. One is looking at the mountain and wishing you had the courage to climb it. The other is looking at the path beneath your feet and realizing that is what you are already doing with every step.
But not really. Life is not a mountain to be climbed. If it was, then the top would be crowded with Buddhas all trying to figure out how to get back down again.
Stop dithering!
Brush your teeth!
@Cinorjer very wise words, thank you. They resonate.
I found it helpful when meditation stopped being "something" "I do"
The end to the double bind is very simple - stop thinking dualistically (I am I and everything else is is is is well something else) that is the double bind - see the cup of tea, or glass of beer as part of you (which it will be anyway) and you can be released from the ridiculous double bind you find yourself in!
Suchness is just that, suchness.
How can you describe what is in front of your eyes in a way that makes it different from what is in front of your eyes?
Removing the anger or hatred, or overlay of ideas, like religion maybe, can bring things into focus, I figure.
Struggling to see the world from the point of view of an imaginary self seems like a dead end to me. Maybe one day I'll wake up and that's the way it will be. I hope my kids have a plan for me then.
But there's nothing 'you' can do to see a cup of beer as part of you.
then just drink up and enjoy the effect it has on you!
...\lol/...
I've been doing that for a while now.
is that a problem?
The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Sosan
May as well give up
Your right,
give up seeking concepts.give up looking for answers on forums
If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. Sosan
anataman gave you a clue
by all means discuss your path in forums,,but answers will come from within You
@federica said: There is NO thing that is 'real'. Not even you
I challenge her to go drop a brick on her foot and come back and tell us the pain and the blood is not real is an illussion
“ To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality, to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.” Sosan
“enlightenment is completely uncaused”
“to seek Mind with the / discriminating/mind is the greatest of all mistakes” Sosan
Re “Because all lines of separation are imaginary” to understand that statement simply
Look into the eyes of a new born baby,
"Dogen Often returns to his original question -- If all beings are endowed with Buddha Nature, what is the point of practice and enlightenment? Very simply, Dogen stressed that practice does not "make" a Buddha, or turn human beings into Buddhas. Instead, practice is an expression, or manifestation, of our enlightened nature. Practice is the activity of enlightenment."
Try reading this daily for a week
http://www.spiritual-minds.com/easternrelgions/zen/The great way.pdf
Indeed.
A shift in perception is just that.
Though uncaused not all shifts are enlightenment. Some are just ego shifting around.
Very subtle. Very different.
Well technically, if you believe the statement "there are no enlightened people, only enlightened activity", then no you won't ever get enlightenment!
FWIW, Bodhidharma said the same. Your friend sound like a hardcore "southern school" zennie.
Reminds me of this koan
Seems to me your friend is trying to convey the same thing that Huai-jang was conveying to Ma-tsu.
@seeker242 yes it definitely resonates with that koan. Her back ground is not zen at all but her points sound like koans. I guess it's all the same poetry.
Reminds me of Eckhardt Tolle. He was going to kill himself and then woke up in oneness. Haha.
Life just seems to manifest in different ways.
What long hours? Do they have any relevance in absence, presence or future practice?
Well said Dogen! Breath comes, breath goes.
... and now back to ye olde news ...