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Pure/Impure Bah!!!
RichardH
Veteran
Is a pure condition any "closer" to the unconditioned than an impure one? No. Is a quiescent condition any more like the the unconditioned than a turbulent one? No. What does this mean for practice? What does this mean for cutting to the heart of the matter?
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Comments
If not sudden then what?
There is this issue that has always been there for me. The very notion that one can "approach" that which is inescapable. You also mentioned a Dzodgen teacher yes?
Charlotte Joko beck says she does not think there is anyone who is 100% non-dual presence all the time....99% maybe. Practice goes on. It becomes more and more forgiving.
It's not absolutely "closer", but it is relatively "closer".
Morally pure (not an absolute matter). Psychologically pure(ditto). Pure in the sense of peoples idea of what behavior "enlightened" practitioners should have (this varies in Buddhadharma too). Etc. ....
Lyssa: Relatively closer?! No. Thats a funny kind of "unconditioned" you have there.
There is (apologize for the word) paradox here. Samsara is endless disequilibrium, always approaching equilibrium but never reaching it. Practically it means tying loose ends forever. The gradual approach in my experience amounts to the hopeless task of self improvement. One purifies forever. It is only when the hopelessness of final purification was unavoidable that sudden recognition occured. Still gradual purification continues, endless as it is.
I am having a hard time understanding but I'll just drop in my two cents again
First of all you actually hit the heart of the matter here: what does this mean to practice? The defining aspect of Buddhist thought is its practical application. Even if one can grasp the meaning of non-duality in its full scope, if it is not put into practice its worthless. So let's examine how it applies in the threefold training.
The whole non-duality deal is mostly a Mahayana thing. As far as practice goes, though, even the Mahayana lineages have a definite course of practice. The "anything goes" as far as morality is concerned is for enlightened beings. Mind you, even Bodhisattvas have their conduct restricted by vows, characteristics and perfections.
As far as concentration goes (this is where it gets tricky), the garbage that appears while one tries to meditate is seen as part of the "absolute concept", so there is no mirror where the dust can settle (type of thing). What does this mean in practice? I don't know, its a mystery to me :-/ but I would guess you wouldn't have to worry much about whether what goes through your mind is wholesome or not, or it it results from this or that, you just focus your mind because, since emptiness is all encompassing, judging your mental states would be grasping duality and leading you away from nibanna.
In what concerns wisdom, in the non-dual system of Mahayana you have to dismiss the appearance of diversity, closely related to the idea of shunyata. In Theravada, wisdom means seeing things as they really are, respecting particularities, so there are wholesome and unwholesome actions and so on and so forth.
In my own simple view, being unconditioned is opposed to being conditioned, it means being rid of kleshas. Without kleshas there would be no volitional formations, breaking dependent arising. It has nothing to do with erasing differences from different things.
Equalling the opposites seems to be "it", but it doesn't hold any practical truth to it, so I think seeing the whole deal as breaking a link of dependent arising makes it much simpler to grasp. We actually do things everyday that take a step aside from the conditioned state, usually the simpler things, we just don't notice it because we are so enthralled with the search for nibanna that we don't hear it knocking on our door.
We think we should search for a way to make opposites come together, yearning for enlightenment, through years of meditation and study, but drinking a glass of water - who knows? - might hold exactly what we are looking for. :om:
That is a funny kind of "unconditioned" as well.
The unconditioned is not accessable. No escape, nothing but. Sudden.
MU!!!!!!!.......only kidding
Body-mind and world are self-luminous, unobstructed, and absolutely alone, without a witness. There is no effort in this.
Also, "unconditioned" refers to only one aspect of the referent. Of course, so does "direct experience." But from a practical perspective, I think it's more important to emphasize attending to direct experience, rather than an ontological assertion about (lack of) causes and conditions.
The best (and most painful) teaching I ever got was when a Zen teacher yelled at me..... "You!!...Shut up!" in front of the whole Sangha. I thought he hated me. But when I saw him in the hallway later, he gave me the most beautiful smile.
Within this context there seems to arise the possibility for non-renunciation. How does one practically negate renunciation? Mind isn't made to comprehend this notion easily. Actually, mind is constructed more to misperceive this abstraction and strive for a convenient solution, pedaling madly with the chain off the sprocket (going nowhere fast). Positivism and smiley face sociology have been intricately dissected by Barbara Ehrenreich in "Bright Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America". Direct experience demands seeing from different perspectives, obtuse angles, unfamiliar territory......
......Also...... not rest either. This is why it is sudden. Absolutely nothing changes in the body-mind. Initially It carries on exactly the same on every level including the most subtle.
I would like to hear more about what you mean by "Eternalism," please. Perhaps this shouldn’t be dismissed with one word, and a swipe of the hand.
I agree with you that one finally realizes that there is “no escape,” and that this is the place where despair gives way to freedom. But, perhaps we came to the same conclusion for different reasons? I see any approaching as going away, because nirvana is always dead center or omnipresent.
Perhaps this is why Buddha said, “When I gained 100% enlightenment, I gained absolutely nothing.”
Did he mean by this, that he was wasting his time up until that day, looking for something that never was or never could be? I think not.
It is my understanding that, what Buddha found on that day, was previous to the mind’s multitude of concepts, and explanations. It was fundamental reality.
S9
The Dharma is frequently misrepresented in Eternalistic terms in the spiritual market place these days. Anatta is commonly taken to mean the negation of an unreal separate self, that affirms a real Eternal Self . In other words No-self is seen as a sly, purist way of saying Self, but that is not what was taught by the Tathagata.
Here are two simple ways of pointing at this....
There isn't an unchanging "no-thing" at the subjective pole of awareness. The non-obstruction or pure receptivity found at the subjective pole, is not other than the objective poles extension. They are just two sides of one action... not separate entities. Like pushing and pulling.
Another way of putting it is that the subject and object co-arise . One cannot exist without the other, and there is no unchanging witness to this arising. Only a stream of selfless arising.
Yes, exactly, “experiential apprehension.” We are not so much approaching a new way of “Being,” but rather rediscovering what has been here all along, yet gone unnoticed; our own 'Fundamental Being'. This is certainly NOT a mind object.
S9
I agree with you that ‘Anatta’ is so very subtle that it is, all too often, misunderstood.
The mind is a very capable instrument, but unfortunately, it is under the impression that there is nothing outside of its self, or that if there were something, it would certainly just be a void.
For this reason, in order to accommodate all of the imaginary possibilities, mind splits itself up into many conceptual selves like, the objective self, the subjective self, and my all time favorite ‘The Watcher (self);” the one that observes these other two selves from afar. All of these are of course manufactured by the mind.
What I believe you are saying is that, this Watcher (who is often seen as our eternal and non-dying self) is also merely an imaginary subdivision.
When a more advanced student of Buddhism speaks of the "Unchanging", he is speaking of something that he himself has witnessed as being something outside of the mind. Likewise with eternal, it has nothing to do with time,(another invention of mind). We are speaking here of something (obviously, not an object) previous to the mind, or “Who you were, before you were born.” We are speaking here of something not captured within the dualistic mind, at/all, and likewise not conveniently smashing duality together in order to create a unity either.
You cannot get around this 'fundamental what-ever-it-is' by simply calling it "a stream of selfless arising." What you are trying to depict as a process (very Taoist) will not stop our crafty minds from instantly changing, even this, into a mind object, or 'a doing' as a Hindu might say in the Gita.
So what is at the root of ‘all this’ going on? What either supports it, or merely allows it?
S9
No. Buddhist practice is not concerned with anything beyond direct experience. If there is something "outside the mind" (I'm not saying there is or isn't), how is it apprehended? It is imputed from experience. This imputation is a fabrication. One result of Buddhist practice is development of the capacity to fully experience the process of fabrication. This is not to say the fabrication is a lie about some external reality. Ontological positions have no place in Buddhist practice at all. They are just another aspect of experience to open to and develop awareness of.