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When one meditates and the mind is full of mental chatter & emotions, that is certainly not an attainment.
Dreams are no different. They are just mental chatter & emotions whilst sleeping.
Do you think a fully enlightened being, with a mind void of greed, hatred & delusion, dreams?
Agreed, DD.
I'm a long way from enlightenment, but I rarely ever dream and the absence of dreams is something that just happened naturally as a result of daytime practice.
Diamond Sutra, another Prajnaparamita scripture's concluding stanza is basically the same as Phena Sutta:
"So I say to you -
This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:" "Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream;
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream." "So is all conditioned existence to be seen." Thus spoke Buddha.
Diamond Sutra, another Prajnaparamita scripture's concluding stanza is basically the same as Phena Sutta:
"So I say to you - This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:" "Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream; Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream." "So is all conditioned existence to be seen." Thus spoke Buddha.
Your translation of the above stanza is different to my Thich Nhat Hahn translation of the Prajnaparamita Diamond Sutra which says:
"All composed things are like a dream,
a phantom, a drop of dew, a flash of lightening.
That is how to meditate on them,
that is how to observe them. "
I'm a long way from enlightenment, but I rarely ever dream and the absence of dreams is something that just happened naturally as a result of daytime practice.
.
Daytime practice leading up through the five stages and bhumi's leads to a more frequent recognition of the dream state. Dreams only cease completely without the loss of awareness at the final stage of practice.
Re #155 ....Hi there, and many thanks for providing that textual information Shenpen nangwa - but actually I've been an offline Tibetan Buddhist practitioner for many years and so I'm already aware of the practices, teachings and so forth on matters concerning the bhumis, dream yoga, 'clear light of sleep ' etc. The rare dreams I do have are usually predictions of things which happen in the future - though that's not something I normally discuss in public, which I'm sure you will appreciate .;)
However, my post was actually meant for Dhamma Dhatu !
Enlightened beings do not dream very much. Dreams are mental formations generally born of discursive mind. Your assertion about being trained to dream is contradictory. An advanced practitioner does not dream much or at all.
S9: Where are the studies, which prove this? Sounds a bit hocus/pokus to me. ; ^ )
I know that extreme meditators often sleep less, but they say this is because meditation is so restful to the body that it equals some amount of sleep time in body refreshment. Even so some Deep Sleep and REM are necessary to the body’s repairing itself, which is an ongoing job.
Enlightened beings do not dream very much. Dreams are mental formations generally born of discursive mind. Your assertion about being trained to dream is contradictory. An advanced practitioner does not dream much or at all.
S9: Where are the studies, which prove this? Sounds a bit hocus/pokus to me. ; ^ )
I know that extreme meditators often sleep less, but they say this is because meditation is so restful to the body that it equals some amount of sleep time in body refreshment. Even so some Deep Sleep and REM are necessary to the body’s repairing itself, which is an ongoing job.
Warm Regards,
S9
____________
i have to agree with DD on this one.
I cant pinpoint a Nikaya reference but it is quite clear in the Dzogchen and Mahamudra literature that as one develops practice their dreams go from being discursive or karmic to a state of control and clarity and finally to complete cessation of dreams without the loss of awareness.
I Googled every which way and back again, about if Buddha slept. I figuring if he didn’t sleep, maybe some others could pull this off too. I even read an article about Buddha’s supernatural powers.
They had him doing off the wall things like eating 1 sesame seed a day, only, etc. But, even that article didn’t say Buddha went sleepless after Realization. So guess I will have to just put that in the "wait and see" pile.
; ^ )
I personally believe they were speaking more metaphorically about being Awake all of the time, even as the body slept, perhaps more like lucid dreaming might be…but now we are all guessing aren’t we. So, I guess I’ll give it a rest. That is unless someone finds something further.
I Googled every which way and back again, about if Buddha slept. I figuring if he didn’t sleep, maybe some others could pull this off too. I even read an article about Buddha’s supernatural powers.
They had him doing off the wall things like eating 1 sesame seed a day, only, etc. But, even that article didn’t say Buddha went sleepless after Realization. So guess I will have to just put that in the "wait and see" pile.
; ^ )
I personally believe they were speaking more metaphorically about being Awake all of the time, even as the body slept, perhaps more like lucid dreaming might be…but now we are all guessing aren’t we. So, I guess I’ll give it a rest. That is unless someone finds something further.
Warm Regards,
S9
oh they still sleep. its just the dream experience that is different.
sorry, i didnt know you were referring to sleep itself.
In the tradition that I am familiar with practitioners utilize the dream/sleep state for practice. at first we have karmic dreams that are beyond control and usually are completely ordinary and reflect our daily or past experiences, after we get some acumen in practice we are able to control the experiences of dreams and often times have lucid dreams, and toward the end or the path our dream "visions" cease and one rests in the so called nature of mind, or naked empty awareness in the sleep state.
the practitioner still gets rest its just the dream experiences that are tracked and change.
X: The Emptiness you are talking about is not my definition of Emptiness.
S9: Yes, the emptiness you are speaking of is only empty of one thing, any kind of identity, am I correct? But, it is full to bursting with everything else, is that right?
It is indeed subtle when speaking of these things. I sometimes wonder if we aren’t simply talking by each other. Because when you define what I have said/think, you are often not really seeing it quite like I meant it.
I think you have my I Am as some sort of personification, a sneeky little ego in disquise, am I right? That of course is not the case of it.
S9: Yes, I read this just previously, co-incidentally. It was pretty good, but off a little bit in my way of seeing it.
X: For those who encounter emptiness teachings after they've become familiar with awareness teachings, it's very tempting to misread the emptiness teachings by substituting terms.
S9: Don’t we all at some point. : ^ ) I feel that you are missing some things by a silly little millimeter, too. But then maybe like you, I am not hearing you correctly.
I am not seeing emptiness as the opposite of fullness, if that is what you are worried about. It is a whole other dimension than duality. 'I Am' is not separate from Mara, It is instead of, or perspective.
X: I found a lot in the emptiness teachings to be quite INcomprehensible!
S9: I don’t find it incomprehensible, anymore. I call it home.
X: I tried to let the emptiness teachings speak for themselves.
S9; I go right to the horses mouth. I look directly at I Am/Awareness, and let it teach me (Osmosis? smile)…but not in words, as my actually Being/I Am. (This has absolutely no connection to the identity that is called S9.)
X: It speaks of selves and things as essenceless and free.
S9: Perhaps free of mental essence, I will give you that. But not free of Awareness Essence, by any stretch of the imagination, my friend. : ^ )
I am not on the top of some mountain, in splendid separation and away from the world. Mara is Nirvana, when seen correctly. This however does not mean that they are identical.
i have to agree with DD on this one.
I cant pinpoint a Nikaya reference but it is quite clear in the Dzogchen and Mahamudra literature that as one develops practice their dreams go from being discursive or karmic to a state of control and clarity and finally to complete cessation of dreams without the loss of awareness.
do they decide to do this or does it happen as a natural result of the path? once inside this awareness, or once this awareness occurs, are dreams undesirable and valueless? and what the devil are dreams in the first place?
No you are right DD was speaking about dreams not sleep, my bad. Thank you for being gracious to me. I was having a senior moment. ; ^ )
Although, I still believe it is more like lucid dreaming, although I may be wrong.
Re: Quote: DD: Enlightened beings do not dream very much. Dreams are mental formations generally born of discursive mind. Your assertion about being trained to dream is contradictory. An advanced practitioner does not dream much or at all.
do they decide to do this or does it happen as a natural result of the path? once inside this awareness, or once this awareness occurs, are dreams undesirable and valueless? and what the devil are dreams in the first place?
its usually a latent function of practice but it can be used as a method as in the practices of dream yoga etc.
once one can recognize the dream state one has a greater capacity to recognize the illusory nature of the waking state and the bardo, this training allows us to be present and in control during the most difficult situations life will bring like the dying process.
dreams arent negative but they can be seen as ways to track development and as tools for practice. There is nothing really undesirable about them.
The Buddha taught all mind, whether gross or subtle, is impermanent. It sounds like you are declaring Atman and Brahma again.
S9: It sounds like you are declaring there is nothing but the mind. So that when Buddha Woke Up to Buddha Nature it was only an improvement on the mind. Is that how you see it?
Please don’t smother me in sutras as an answer. : ^ (
Well it wouldn't be desirable if it weren't an improvement but an improvement doesn't necessarily mean an addition-I think that part you've unjustly inferred.
As for nothing but the mind-what do you mean? And what does "mind" mean to you? What is it composed of?
Hi Subjectivity, what you are talking about, the awareness and sense of being is simply the luminosity aspect. It is not the empty aspect I am talking about. The luminosity will often be misunderstood as something permanent, independent, Self. The practitioner must got through different phases first before emptiness can be understood and appreciated better.
One should first refine the I AM experience in the 4 aspects I mentioned, then realise the non-dual nature of Awareness (Stage 4) which means rather than seeing Awareness as the background presence and being behind all phenomena (I AM stage), one sees all transience as Awareness itself and there is no more Subject and Object, hearer-heard, seer-seen duality, one sees through division of inside and outside. However at this level the understanding is still like subject-object inseparability, one experiences non-dual where everything seen, heard, tasted, everything experienced reveal themselves as Non-Dual Presence yet there is still a sense of a permanent subject in which objects are inseparable from. Then afterwards realise that Awareness is actually all manifestations and there is no ontological essence (Stage 5), which is Anatta.. Then one can better appreciate the dependently originated (empty) nature of Awareness (Stage 6).
At the I AM stage one cannot appreciate the empty nature of awareness because awareness is still seen as distinct from transient phenomena, and is itself permanent, unchanging, independent. One must overcome the absolute-relative dichotomy through non-dual insight first before being able to appreciate transience and emptiness and understand that luminosity, awareness, presence, nothing is denied, only its empty nature understood.
As I said, Buddha Nature in Tibetan Buddhism is described as the inseparability of luminosity and emptiness. Most people however skew to the luminosity side and fail to see its emptiness. The inseparability of luminosity and emptiness is always already the case.
The Buddha taught all mind, whether gross or subtle, is impermanent. It sounds like you are declaring Atman and Brahma again.
S9: It sounds like you are declaring there is nothing but the mind. So that when Buddha Woke Up to Buddha Nature it was only an improvement on the mind. Is that how you see it?
Please don’t smother me in sutras as an answer. : ^ (
Respectfully,
S9
In Buddhism, the mindstream, the stream of consciousness/knowing is eternal but is a 'changing eternal'. Hence we can say that Mind, the Nature of Mind, has been always already the case, ever-present, eternal, but not as an unchanging substance. It is just a stream of self-luminous manifestation, like a river flowing ceaselessly without beginning nor end, and in fact, in fact without even a sense of movement (just change, but what D.O.s has no coming nor going nor movement). It is also not some kind of cosmic source giving rise to manifestation when one realises anatta, though that would be the sort of understanding when one experiences impersonality at the I AM stage. Rather it is an individual but non-dual mindstream.
Sankaràcàrya even mentions the exact opposite view of what Sàntarakùita mentioned above and refutes him. Sàntarakùita says, “The error in the view of these philosophers is a slight one – due only to the assertion of eternality of cognition.” About the Chittamatra, Sankara says the error in the view of these philosophy is only slight - they believe the non-dual mind as changing moment to moment, we believe it as unchanging eternal.
If the meaning of the Uttara Tantra is what the Shentongpas make it out to be, it would have existed in the Indian sources too. Sankara would certainly have written that the view of these Buddhist philosophers as what the Vedas had always taught and that Buddhism is just a branch of Hinduism. Even today, if any Indian Hindu philosopher comes across the Shentong view, they would be most happy to embrace it as the correct view and take it as a solid proof that Buddhism is just a branch of Hinduism and the Buddha did not teach anything new. This of course blatantly contradicts what the Buddha himself said in Mahayana, Theravada, and Sarvàstivàda Sutras and Sàstra-s. The Buddha said that he taught something that had been lost for a long time. But the Vedas and the Vedic Bràhmaõa-s of the Buddha’s time, whom the Buddha met, had been and are still teaching the existence of true âtmà, and ‘eternal non-dual cognition’ as the Ultimate Reality.
If we glance through the Jain literature, we again find that no Jain scholar mentions that the Buddhists believed in an eternal / permanent non-dual cognition as the ultimate reality. At least, those Jain scholars after Asanga should have done so, if that was how the Uttara Tantra had been interpreted in India.
If we analyze both the Hindu Sankaràcàrya’s and the Buddhist Sàntarakùita’s refutation, we find that both agree with the view of the Hindu Advaita Vedànta, which is that the ultimate reality (âtmà) is an unchanging, eternal non-dual cognition and that the Buddhists as a whole do not agree that the ultimate reality is an eternal, unchanging non-dual cognition, but rather an changing eternal non-dual cognition. These statements found in the 6<sup>th</sup> century Hindu and the 9<sup>th</sup> century Buddhist (both were after the Uttara Tantra and Asanga), show that the ultimate reality as an unchanging, eternal non-dual cognition is a Hindu view and is non-existent amongst the Buddhists of India. Not only was such a view non-existent amongst Buddhists of India, but also it was refuted as a wrong view by scholars like Sàntarakùita. He even writes that if and when Buddhists use the word ‘eternal’ (nitya), it means ‘pariõàmi nitya’, i.e., changing eternal, and not the Hindu kind of eternal, which always remains unchanged.
The Hindu âtmà is not only non-dual cognition but is also unchanging, eternal, and truly existing. Sankaràcàrya defines existence (sat) in hisTattvaboda as that which remains the same in all the 3 times (past, present, future). In the commentary by Gauóapàda (who was Sankaràcàrya’s Guru’s Guru), of the Mànóukya Upaniùada, in verse number 96, he calls the eternally really existing non-dual cognition is non-relational, i.e., free from reference points. In the 37<sup>th</sup> verse of the same work, this non-dual, eternal, really existing cognition is free from all sense organs, i.e., free from the dualistic mind (namshe). So the Upaniùadic view is that the really existing, eternal / permanent, non-dual, non-referential cognition is the âtmà, and this is not dualistic mind. This Upanishadic view existed even before the Buddha, and this was what Sankaràcàrya expounded very clearly and most powerfully around the 6<sup>th</sup> century. This view, similar to this Sankara view, was refuted by Sàntarakùita as a wrong view.
Just a tiny question and I will answer at length later when I have more time to think and compose.
I really don’t understand how ‘changing’ (Whether eternal or not) could be considered non-dual. Changing to what?
Respectfully,
S9
Hi, at the non-dual and anatta level, change is experienced without movement.
Meaning, there is actually no movement being experienced, no change from this to that.
Only from the viewpoint of a separate observer that is unchanging do we perceive things as changing from this to that.There is no 'thing' that can become something else. There is no something transforming into something. There is no coming or going.
There is just This, One Sound, One Thought, no this coming from there and going to there. No movement. This is well explained in the last section 'From the Witness to Pure Consciousness' in Greg Goode's article http://www.heartofnow.com/files/atmananda.html
As manifestation without observer-observed duality, there is just That - firewood in its suchness, and firewood does not turn into ashes.
Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death.
This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death.
Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring.
In naked awareness, there is no splitting of attributes and objectification of these attributes into different groups of the same experience. So thoughts and sense perceptions are not disowned and the nature of impermanence is taken in wholeheartedly in the experience of no-self. ‘Impermanence’ is never what it seems to be, never what that is understood in conceptual thoughts. ‘Impermanence’ is not what the mind has conceptualized it to be. In non-dual experience, the true face of impermanence nature is experienced as happening without movement, change without going anywhere. This is the “what is” of impermanence. It is just so.
p.s. Excerpt from Greg Goode's article:
From the Witness to Pure Consciousness
When the witness is very stable, it begins to open or dissolve into global, loving lightness of pure consciousness, which is without any gaps or separation anywhere. This happens through time, or when one looks into the witness the same way that one looked into objects at the beginning of the investigation.
The witness has become stable when:
Witnessing doesn’t seem like a mental state
Witnessing doesn’t seem as though it needs practice or vigilance
Witnessing doesn’t seem as though it’s reversible or able to be "lost"
Witnessing no longer seems like it is happening “here” as opposed to "there"
It no longer feels as though there are objects that exist outside of awareness
You no longer wonder whether awareness should allows one person to see all of another person’s thoughts
The witness no longer seems personal
There no longer seem to be unseen arisings
At this point, there is no presumption of a person. There is no separate “one” that arisings appear to. There is no felt authorship, doership or receivership. There is no personalization or experience of separation.
Experience is sweet, open and loving – the source of the arisings is awareness and love, and the arisings themselves are sweet because their source is sweet. Even pain is open, loving and sweet. Its nature is not pain, but awareness. One can no longer "be" a person (indeed, one never was a person). One has recognized one’s self as awareness.
But there is still a very subtle dualistic structure to the witness. Sweet, but dualistic nevertheless. The dualistic structure consists of:
A subject/object distinction, i.e., a distinction between awareness and the arisings in awareness
A multiplicity, a distinction between arisings themselves
Both of these distinctions go together; they need each other. And inquiry into the either one of them will dissolve them both.
The investigation at this level is very subtle, but the basic insight is the same as it is everywhere. There is no experience of objects outside of awareness. There is no phenomenon that organizes or structures awareness; if there were such a phenomenon, then it would be just the same as any other phenomenon has been discovered to be: just another arising in awareness. This was what was realized with color, sound, the body, seeing and hearing, memory, will, intention and causality. So the same realization is available for these ultra-subtle relations - relations such as subject/object and multiplicity/unicity. There is no subject/object distinction outside the current arising. It is never witnessed. There is a projection or presumption of this distinction, and the presumption is nothing other than an image in this very thought. When it is seen that neither distinction nor multiplicity is an objective feature anywhere in experience, then the feeling that these sbutle things are present dissolves. And then experience will no longer seem conditioned by any duality, even the most subtle or hidden duality.
This can be looked at in another way too. All that is ever experienced is the current arising or thought. There is no passage of time experienced in that arising. There is no passage of time experienced outside of that arising. There can in fact be no time. Without time, then there can't be any such things as arisings. They don't make sense unless time is present - which it's not. This establishes you as the Timeless. And your experience confirms this.
Another way to see this is also to see that, according to the way the witness is structured, only the current arising is ever experienced. There are never two arisings experiences, expecially since memory is itself inoperative. That is, memory itself has been seen through as merely an arising, therefore absolutely incapable of establishing anything other than what is current. So there cannot be said to be two or more arisings. And nor is it your experience that there is an arising before THIS or after THIS. If there cannot be two arisings, then how can there be even one? What is present is not even the kind of thing that numbers apply to. The present is not one of several items in a string, nor is it experienced in any way like that. Without the present seeming like it arises in a numerical series, then the very notion of arising itself gently and peacefully collapses in to pure consciousness. Consciousness shines as itself. Openly, sweetly and lovingly.
Realization isn’t an improvement. It is more like Clarity, or a seeing of Actuality. So it isn’t one more step on a ladder, going up/up/up. It is more like dispensing with the ladder all together.
Anything that can be thought is the mind. Mind is simply a bundle of thoughts.
Forgive me, but it seems a contradiction to say that eternity is the constantly unchanging changing or is it the constantly changing unchanging, whatever. Now, you might say the changing never stops (and get away with it in finitude) and so it is constant change. But, I don’t believe that you can go on to call that unchanging changing and say this happens in eternity.
You might be able to prove such things on paper, (many busy minded scholars do), but I seriously doubt that you could experience such a phenomenon.
I do understand the concept of the Tao as being One Unity and therefore everything merely rearranging with nothing ever lost, but I see that as an excellent description of finitude, and not as being transcendent of finitude. Now this may go on infinitely, but infinity and eternal is not actually the same thing, as infinite speaks about time and eternity transcends time. This is not just a difference in word choice. From what I have witnessed personally, this difference is an Actuality.
I hope you don’t mind that I’m taking what you have said here in pieces, as it is a lot to consider.
DD,
It sounds like you are declaring there is nothing but the mind. So that when Buddha Woke Up to Buddha Nature it was only an improvement on the mind. Is that how you see it?
S9
not really an "improvement" on the mind. Rather the ability to distinguish between ordinary mind and the true nature of non-dual, empty, awareness (for lack of a better term).
The non-dual, non-existant, luminescent rigpa (awareness) must be distinguished from ordinary mind and mental processes in order for Buddhanature (tathagatagarbha, dharmadhatu, dharmakaya) to be fully recognized and integrated.
So its not an improvement on mind but a recognition of and complete integration with nature.
Forgive me, but it seems a contradiction to say that eternity is the constantly unchanging changing or is it the constantly changing unchanging, whatever. Now, you might say the changing never stops (and get away with it in finitude) and so it is constant change. But, I don’t believe that you can go on to call that unchanging changing and say this happens in eternity.
You might be able to prove such things on paper, (may busy minded scholars do), but I seriously doubt that you could experience such a phenomenon.
I do understand the concept of the Tao as being One Unity and therefore everything merely rearranging with nothing ever lost, but I see that as an excellent description of finitude, and not as being transcendent of finitude. Now this may go on infinitely, but infinity and eternal is not actually the same thing, as infinite speaks about time and eternity transcends time. This is not just a difference in word choice. From what I have witnessed personally, this difference is an Actuality.
I hope you don’t mind that I’m taking what you have said here in pieces, as it is a lot to consider.
Respectfully,
S9
Hi, what I mean is this: mind, awareness, consciousness, whatever you want to call it, which is simply the flow of one's individual mindstream/stream of knowing... is ever-present. So it is eternal in this sense. But this ever-presentness is not an unchanging background being or presence or eternal witness, rather it is just this One Sound, One Thought, etc, which is totally transient.
Yet, nothing ever moves! Movement implies from this to that. You do not ever experience movement in transience. You will get a feel of what this means when you truly experience non-dual directly. It is not a theory, not a concept, it's something you experience and see very very clearly. No movement is actually experienced in non-dual presence which arises AS the transient sound, thought, sight, etc.
Movement is simply a thought projection, a reflection on a past experience and imposing the sense of duality (an unchanging 'me' having experienced those changes) into the picture, giving a sense of a self having experienced external things moving through time, and the sense of self gives a sense of linkage and coordination. When we talk about change, most of us think of things and entities that comes, and then goes somewhere, or transforms into something. But this is not the case in direct experience, it is a presumption. In direct non-dual awareness, nothing moves. There is no 'me' experiencing changing sounds moving or transforming from this to that, there is just SOUND. Then THOUGHT. SIGHT. Everything appearing vividly as Presence, disjoint, spontaneous, without a separate perceiver or thinker or experiencer. It's not one thought transforming to another, it's just One Thought, spontaneous, disjoint, uncoordinated, without a thinker. Firewood does not turn into ash, firewood is fully and completely present and abiding as the phenomenal expression of firewood, ash is fully and completely present and abiding as the phenomena expression of firewood, no before or after, no this becoming that.
As my friend Longchen who has clear non-dual insights also said years ago:
Do you know how present moment feels like? It feels that everything is not moving. This is because awareness is fully aligned with changes at the precise present moment. It is not because the mind has being stopped.
Zen Master Seung Sahn actually said the same thing too:
Zen Master Seung Sahn elaborated on this topic in his excellent book The Compass of Zen (p. 143):
"Everyone thinks that this is extremely difficult teaching, something beyond their reach or experience. How can things appear and disappear, and yet there is, originally, even in this constantly moving world, no appearing and disappearing? A student once asked me, 'The Mahaparinirvana-sutra seems very confusing. Everything is always moving. And yet everything is not moving? I don't understand this Buddhism . . .' But there is a very easy way to understand this: Sometime you go to a movie. You see an action movie about a good man and a bad man--lots of fighting, cars moving very fast, and explosions all over the place. Everything is always moving very quickly. Our daily lives have this quality: everything is constantly moving, coming and going, nonstop. It seems like there is no stillness-place. But this movie is really only a very long strip of film. In one second, there are something like fourteen frames. Each frame is a separate piece of action. But in each frame, nothing is moving. Everything is completely still. Each frame, one by one, is a complete picture. In each frame, nothing ever comes or goes, or appears or disappears. Each frame is complete stillness. The film projector moves the frames very quickly, and all of these frames run past the lens very fast, so the action on-screen seems to happen nonstop. There is no break in the movement of things. But actually when you take this strip of film and hold it up to the light with your hands, there is nothing moving at all. Each frame is complete. Each moment is completely not-moving action.
"Our minds and the whole universe are like that. This world is impermanent. Everything is always changing, changing, changing, moving, moving, moving, nonstop. Even one second of our lives seems full of so much movement and change in this world that we see. But your mind--right now--is like a lens whose shutter speed is one divided by infinite time. We call that moment-mind. If you attain that mind, then this whole world's movement stops. From moment to moment you can see this world completely stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Like the film, you perceive every frame--this moment--which is infinitely still and complete. In the frame, nothing is moving. There is no time, and nothing appears or disappears in that box. But this movie projector--your thinking mind--is always moving, around and around and around, so you experience this world as constantly moving and you constantly experience change, which is impermanence. You lose moment-mind by following your conceptual thinking, believing that it is real."
I also find U.G. Krishnamurti's writings helpful on the topic of disjointed, spontaneous, non-dual sensations/presence:
Your movement of thought interferes with the process of touch, just as it does with the other senses. Anything you touch is always translated as 'hard', 'soft', 'warm', 'cold', 'wet', 'dry', and so on.
You do not realize it, but it is your thinking that creates your own body. Without this thought process there is no body consciousness -- which is to say there is no body at all. My body exists for other people; it does not exist for me; there are only isolated points of contact, impulses of touch which are not tied together by thought. So the body is not different from the objects around it; it is a set of sensations like any others. Your body does not belong to you.
Perhaps I can give you the 'feel' of this. I sleep four hours at night, no matter what time I go to bed. Then I lie in bed until morning fully awake. I don't know what is lying there in the bed; I don't know whether I'm lying on my left side or my right side -- for hours and hours I lie like this. If there is any noise outside -- a bird or something -- it just echoes in me. I listen to the "flub-dub-flub-dub" of my heart and don't know what it is. There is no body between the two sheets -- the form of the body is not there. If the question is asked, "What is in there?" there is only an awareness of the points of contact, where the body is in contact with the bed and the sheets, and where it is in contact with itself, at the crossing of the legs, for example. There are only the sensations of touch from these points of contact, and the rest of the body is not there. There is some kind of heaviness, probably the gravitational pull, something very vague. There is nothing inside which links up these things. Even if the eyes are open and looking at the whole body, there are still only the points of contact, and they have no connection with what I am looking at. If I want to try to link up these points of contact into the shape of my own body, probably I will succeed, but by the time it is completed the body is back in the same situation of different points of contact. The linkage cannot stay. It is the same sort of thing when I'm sitting or standing. There is no body.
Can you tell me how mango juice tastes? I can't. You also cannot; but you try to relive the memory of mango juice now -- you create for yourself some kind of an experience of how it tastes -- which I cannot do. I must have mango juice on my tongue -- seeing or smelling it is not enough -- in order to be able to bring that past knowledge into operation and to say "Yes, this is what mango juice tastes like." This does not mean that personal preferences and 'tastes' change. In a market my hand automatically reaches out for the same items that I have liked all my life. But because I cannot conjure up a mental experience, there can be no craving for foods which are not there.
Smell plays a greater part in your daily life than does taste. The olfactory organs are constantly open to odors. But if you do not interfere with the sense of smell, what is there is only an irritation in the nose. It makes no difference whether you are smelling cow dung or an expensive French perfume -- you rub the nose and move on.
...................
Is there in you an entity which you call the 'I' or the 'mind' or the 'self'? Is there a co- ordinator who is co-ordinating what you are looking at with what you are listening to, what you are smelling with what you are tasting, and so on? Or is there anything which links together the various sensations originating from a single sense -- the flow of impulses from the eyes, for example? Actually, there is always a gap between any two sensations. The co-ordinator bridges that gap: he establishes himself as an illusion of continuity.
In the natural state there is no entity who is co-ordinating the messages from the different senses. Each sense is functioning independently in its own way. When there is a demand from outside which makes it necessary to co-ordinate one or two or all of the senses and come up with a response, still there is no co-ordinator, but there is a temporary state of co- ordination. There is no continuity; when the demand has been met, again there is only the unco-ordinated, disconnected, disjointed functioning of the senses. This is always the case. Once the continuity is blown apart -- not that it was ever there; but the illusory continuity -- it's finished once and for all.
Can this make any sense to you? It cannot. All that you know lies within the framework of your experience, which is of thought. This state is not an experience. I am only trying to give you a 'feel' of it, which is, unfortunately, misleading.
When there is no co-ordinator, there is no linking of sensations, there is no translating of sensations; they stay pure and simple sensations. I do not even know that they are sensations. I may look at you as you are talking. The eyes will focus on your mouth because that is what is moving, and the ears will receive the sound vibrations. There is nothing inside which links up the two and says that it is you talking. I may be looking at a spring bubbling out of the earth and hear the water, but there is nothing to say that the noise being heard is the sound of water, or that that sound is in any way connected with what I am seeing. I may be looking at my foot, but nothing says that this is my foot. When I am walking, I see my feet moving -- it is such a funny thing: "What is that which is moving?"
What functions is a primordial consciousness, untouched by thought.
..........
You have a feeling that there is a 'cameraman' who is directing the eyes. But left to themselves -- when there is no 'cameraman' -- the eyes do not linger, but are moving all the time. They are drawn by the things outside. Movement attracts them, or brightness or a color which stands out from whatever is around it. There is no 'I' looking; mountains, flowers, trees, cows, all look at me. The consciousness is like a mirror, reflecting whatever is there outside. The depth, the distance, the color, everything is there, but there is nobody who is translating these things. Unless there is a demand for knowledge about what I am looking at, there is no separation, no distance from what is there. It may not actually be possible to count the hairs on the head of someone sitting across the room, but there is a kind of clarity which seems as if I could.
Related:
(Thusness/ByPasser at Dharma Overground, March 2009):
I think realization and development will eventually reach the same destination.
A practitioner that experience the “Self” will initially treat
1.The “Source as the Light of Everything”.
then
2. He/she will eventually move to the experience that the “Light is really the Everything”.
In the first case, the Light will appear to be still and the transience appears to be moving. Collapsing of space and time will only be experienced when one resides in Self. However if the mind continues to see the 'Light' as separated from the 'Everything' , then realization will appear to be apart from development.
In the second case when we experience the “Light is really the Everything”, then Everything will be experienced as manifesting yet not moving. This is the experience of wholeness and completeness in an instantaneous moment or Eternity in a moment. When this experience becomes clear in practice, then witness is seen as the transience. Space and time will also collapse when we experience the completeness and wholeness of transience. An instantaneous moment of manifestation that is complete and whole in its own also does not involve movement and change (No changing thing, only change). Practicing being 'bare' in attention yet at the same time noticing the 3 characteristics will eventually bring us to this point.
However what has a yogi overcome when moving from case 1 to 2 and what exactly is the cause of separation in the first place? I think realizing this cause is of utmost importance for solving the paradox of realization and development.
S: The ability to distinguish between ordinary mind and the true nature of non-dual, empty, awareness.
S9: I believe that we may be in agreement on this. I believe the place where we may part ways is in how we each define Awareness. Do you see Awareness as being Eternal?
S: The non-dual, non-existent, luminescent rigpa (awareness) must be distinguished from ordinary mind and mental processes in order for Buddhanature (tathagatagarbha, dharmadhatu, dharmakaya) to be fully recognized and integrated.
S9: How would you integrate Awareness with nature? Do you feel that nature and Awareness are 2 equal things that have somehow separated?
S: The ability to distinguish between ordinary mind and the true nature of non-dual, empty, awareness.
S9: I believe that we may be in agreement on this. I believe the place where we may part ways is in how we each define Awareness. Do you see Awareness as being Eternal?
S: The non-dual, non-existent, luminescent rigpa (awareness) must be distinguished from ordinary mind and mental processes in order for Buddhanature (tathagatagarbha, dharmadhatu, dharmakaya) to be fully recognized and integrated.
S9: How would you integrate Awareness with nature? Do you feel that nature and Awareness are 2 equal things that have somehow separated?
Respectfully,
S9
S9,
The "awareness" that I am talking about I see as being neither eternal nor non-eternal. Its completely insubstantial, lucid, and beyond categorization.
I feel that awareness/rigpa is nature. Our delusion and karma is what causes us to remain in a state of confusion rather than integration in our true nature.
Awareness? no such thing. We do acknowledge that right? No such entity as "awareness" or "mind". These are convenient fictions, something to hang our hat on.
Awareness? no such thing. We do acknowledge that right? No such entity as "awareness" or "mind". These are convenient fictions, something to hang our hat on.
awareness is a bad translation.
there is no fitting translation for Rigpa.
its not an entity.
Let me question you a little further, as words can be a tricky tool and often impede understanding.
S: I feel that awareness/rigpa is nature.
S9: When you say nature, do you mean trees and grass such nature, or something quite different?
S: The "awareness" that I am talking about, I see as being neither eternal nor non-eternal.
S9: On one level such words are certainly dualistic…
But what is Awareness then? Can we agree that it is outside of time?
S: Its completely insubstantial, lucid, and beyond categorization.
S9: Can you look directly at it, even though it is difficult to describe, or are these collected wisdoms?
Respectfully,
S9
Something different than conventional nature like trees etc. by nature i am referring to the empty, lucid, nature of ultimate reality.
Yes, i do think we can agree that Rigpa is outside of the concept of time.
To look at it would be do experience it in a subject/object relationship that is dualistic. Its not seen it just is. In a way these are just collected wisdoms, since what we are talking about is the inconceivable.
Explaining all the whys and wherefores of finitude falls into complex speculations. To do so would be like weaving dreams.
I don’t believe that the human mind is up to the task of understanding the whole of finitude, because as fast as you could run it would grow out (be projected) in front of you.
We can however know Awareness directly, as what we are, and know that it is our Original Nature. (Full of its self, Aware of its self as Self, and in no need of other.)
If you say awareness of what is outside of that, you have already left home, because Awareness doesn’t play around with objects and mind objects, or the separations called other. This would be the purview of the dreaming mind.
awareness is a bad translation.
there is no fitting translation for Rigpa.
its not an entity.
A friend who is practicing Dzogchen speaks of Rigpa, I alway saw a playful similarity between Dzogchen and Dogen , but according to this fellow Dzochen is even more radically non-renunciative in "approach". I'd like to learn more.
A friend who is Practicing Dzogchen speaks of Rigpa, I alway saw a playful similarity between Dzogchen and Dogen, but according to this fellow Dzochen is even more radically non-renunciative in "approach". I'd like to learn more.
it does have those elements of view over conduct.
in my opinion, proper renunciation and conduct that recognizes the conventional/relative truth is essential for a Dzogchenpa. Even though ones view may be very "high" our conduct should be that of dedicated bodhisattva's.
it does have those elements of view over conduct.
in my opinion, proper renunciation and conduct that recognizes the conventional/relative truth is essential for a Dzogchenpa. Even though ones view may be very "high" our conduct should be that of dedicated bodhisattva's.
He says that Rigpa has the nature of spontaneous "goodness" or right conduct? If one has not gone through the appropriate preliminaries can there be the problem of mere licence looking like a radical "letting be" ?
It seems the narrow ethical gate of the precepts has to be passed through, but eventually you embody them. Then a precept against theft for instance is not needed for someone who does not steal.
S: I am referring to the empty, lucid, nature of ultimate reality.
S9: Yes, I thought that was what you were referring to.
Let me explain a bit about how I perceive it. (Looking right at it, but not with my eyes.) I feel that it is vast, and yet without size. It is here but abides in no actual location. It is vital but without motion. You cannot understand it, but you can know it by being it. It is now as ‘Being’ ever ‘Present,’ and not altering in any way by time. It is empty of all thoughts and forms and yet certainly not empty in the sense of being nothing. Am I close to what you see?
S: To look at it would be do experience it in a subject/object relationship that is dualistic.
S9: Yes, when the mind tries to look at it, the mind instantly creates an object. But any object is a dead thing on comparison.
S: It’s not seen it just is. In a way these are just collected wisdoms, since what we are talking about is the inconceivable.
S9: Only inconceivable to the mind, surely. If you don’t try to make it an object, it fills you up.
Funny, my mind still has a taste for that object. : ^ ) and I am not cruel enough to take this away. But, I know the difference.
Explaining all the whys and wherefores of finitude falls into complex speculations. To do so would be like weaving dreams.
I don’t believe that the human mind is up to the task of understanding the whole of finitude, because as fast as you could run it would grow out (be projected) in front of you.
We can however know Awareness directly, as what we are, and know that it is our Original Nature. (Full of its self, Aware of its self as Self, and in no need of other.)
If you say awareness of what is outside of that, you have already left home, because Awareness doesn’t play around with objects and mind objects, or the separations called other. This would be the purview of the dreaming mind.
Respectfully,
S9
I'm not sure how your post is related at all to what I'm saying.
As for 'Awareness of what is outside of that', that is not awareness. There is literally nothing outside of awareness. The thought of something outside of awareness is simply a thought-projection, which is an appearance of awareness. Nothing can be perceived without awareness. In fact nothing isn't awareness, it's not that awareness is something that perceives things, but rather whatever IS, sounds, sights, thoughts, IS awareness, there is no subject/object, inner/outer, seer/seen division.
Awareness doesn't play around with objects and mind objects or separations, because there never was any objects apart from awareness.
However even by saying 'awareness', we must understand that that too is like Richard says, 'a convenient fiction'. Doesn't mean presence isn't present, but we musn't see it as something permanent, independent, some kind of entity or essence or substance.
As I was explaining in another forum:
We can talk about this in two ways:
All there is is awareness, in other words, everything you experience is awareness.
Or -
There is just sensations and thoughts and no other thing called awareness, in other words, since there is just sensations and thoughts, those sensations and thoughts are the only 'awareness' there is, there is no separate perceiver or awareness.
Both are the same thing. There is a danger however, in reifying Case 1) into a Brahman, something ultimate, unchanging and independent. Though if it is not reified, that is fine.
Case 2 is what is more commonly explained in classical Nikaya, original Buddhist texts. Even though it never talks about Awareness as the essence of all experiences, it is implied already that awareness is non-dual because there cannot be a subject/object split in anatta, there cannot be a split when all there is is sensations and aggregates.
Reification would be imputing a particular set of sensation as 'Subject' or 'Awareness' while the other set as 'Objects', but in reality, all there is is self-aware sensations and thoughts, if all there is is self-aware manifestation, in other words only sensations and aggregates, and that sensations and aggregates auto-imply awareness, why talk about awareness at all? There is absolutely no reification here, only impermanent dependently originated sensations and thoughts whether they are gross (gross waking dream sensory experience) or subtle (such as dream, astral realms, or the subtler formless I AMness experience).
As Greg Goode said, "once experience doesn't seem divided and once it doesn't seem like there is anything other than consciousness, then the notion of consciousness itself will gently and peacefully dissolve."
P.S. As to Lucky noticing similarities between Advaita and Buddhism in terms of non-dual, I have to say that the non-dual experience in Advaita and Buddhism is exactly the same. The only difference lies in the view, whereby Advaita makes nondual awareness into Pure Subjectivity transcending and encompassing phenomena, but Buddhism sees only vivid and empty (dependently originated) manifestations and thus which leads to subtler realisation of the Anatta and Empty nature of luminosity in Buddhism. The difference thus lies not in non-dual but in Anatta and Emptiness.
There is no hearer, only sounds, hearing is just sounds. No seer, only scenery, the seeing is the scenery. What you call 'awareness' is only just dependently originated phenomena, sounds, sights, thoughts, etc. Absolutely no reification here. Reification would be stating - there is an independent awareness perceiving things, or an unchanging substance, like a mirror, behind all changes. Buddhism's 'awareness has always been so' does not mean a Brahman or an ultimate subject or an ultimate perceiver, rather it means all along there never has been a perceiver, only sensations, thoughts, sounds, sights, just that.
This is what I was trying to say previously, restating it because you said you didn’t understand my reasons for originally saying it.
I think one of the big differences between what I am say or write and what you are saying is that I am looking directly at what I am experiencing personally right now, and you (on the other hand) are relating what someone else realized or experienced, and then conveyed to you, this fellow called Thusness.
Let me just say that ‘there is a lot of slip between the cup and the lip.’
Perhaps you are not actually seeing as clearly, as you might wish, what Thusness witnessed or was saying after the fact to you. Or did you actually experience this yourself at a later date and only borrow his words to save labor? (Let me just say how very much I doubt that, as often what you convey is impossible to actually live, given what I have witnessed.) Although, I can easily see that much of what you say could be figured out in the mind, by one trying hard to understand, albeit often even there it being somewhat contridictory at times.
The reason that I say this is because I spent many years speaking with a fellow who is definitely enlightened, and although he knocked himself out (as we had been dharma friends for decades b/4 his final realization), I still wasn’t getting it 2nd hand. This is because, no matter how clever you may be, and no matter how dedicated, you cannot know Ultimate Being from a distance (that distance being living in the mind.)
I think for a while, I am going to concentrate on where we agree and why, because that is abundant.
No, I can’t agree with that. I will however admit that Awareness isn’t an object or a thing. S9
This is like saying here is a dog. It has no tail, no legs, no head, no body, ...but it is a dog. All I can say is that everything in practice collapses into sheer experience, including the notion of sheer experience. Everything resolves into simplicity, including simplicity. Only this can affirm everything
I am no expert on Nagarjuna, and the development of madhyamika, as the writting are extensive, but they seem to most clearly express this.
All one can do is speak from practice , and this is where it is.
I will give you that all notions collapse into sheer experience, even simplicity and your beloved practice. But, Ultimate Experience, itself, does not collapse, (I am not speaking of physical/mental experiences; which are actually mind objects/processes). This Ultimate and Immediate Experience is what I often call Ultimate Awareness.
The reason that you believe everything collapses even Ultimate Awareness (which you do not honor) is because you still have mind being king, or the final abettor or what is possible.
R: I am no expert on Nagarjuna.
S9: No one can understand Nagarjuna completely, unless he is both as bright as Nagarjuna and as advanced spiritually.
I understood that he said even "emptiness was empty of empty," but what was he actually saying…more empty, the real/real empty after that? I doubt this. I believe he was trying to help us transcend the mind and look more directly.
R: All one can do is speak from practice, and this is where it is.
S9: Wouldn’t Nagarjuna also say “empty of practice,”too? Could it be that you are practice bound? Practice is merely the finger pointing. Don’t fall in love with the finger.
Why do you chide practice? Practice means going from thinking about this to realizing it. It is not referring to a formal activity.
When "Ultimate Awareness" (a massive fiction) also disappears, the world in all its multiplicity is affirmed in its perfection, Samasara is affirmed without distortion. This is traceless.
If there is something hidden behind the eye, taking up the seat of knower, then there is still subtle duality, and the world is not truly affirmed without distortion. You may be talking about something else, I may misunderstand you, but what you seem to consistantly describe is an absolutized object hidden behind the eye, partially sensed, but not clarified. Affirming a subjective absolute is inherently fictional, useful maybe, but dropped in practice. Honoring this fiction just cements it and blocks practice.
I am not being purposefully disrespectful of practice. How could I do that, and continue to have a practice of my own, daily?
In my practice, I trying watch my breath in every waking moment of the day, and whenever I wake up during the night, with some good/increasing success as the years pass.
In my practice I use breath to hold my mind close at hand (what some have called, “Holding the Rope of God,” meaning it keeps the mind more getting lost in the world), while I look directly at the Ultimate.
R: Practice means going from thinking about this to realizing it.
S9: Very often in practice, we just give ourselves one more thing to think about, and when certain sidhis (psychic powers) begin, we fall in love with them as a proof that we are special. This can become a barrier as well.
R: It is not referring to a formal activity.
S9: May I ask you what your practice is?
R: “(a massive fiction)”
S9: Could I understand this to be chiding? I prefer not to, and to give you the benefit of the doubt until proved wrong. I simply see this type of statement as your own passionate way of relaying your opinion.
Nothing will kill a friendly conversation more quickly than one or both persons starting to take things personally and getting defensive, or even angry.
R: When "Ultimate Awareness" also disappears, the world in all its multiplicity is affirmed in its perfection, Samsara is affirmed without distortion. This is traceless.
S9: I think we can agree on this, but I call this the Witness. Ultimate Awareness is not the Witnessing function. We divide on what comes next.
R: If there is something hidden behind the eye, taking up the seat of knower, then there is still subtle duality, and the world is not truly affirmed without distortion.
S9: You are quite right in this. Some people refer to this portion of the mind as being the "Witness." Witness Mind is not the Ultimate either.
R: You may be talking about something else, I may misunderstand you, but what you seem to consistently describe is an absolutized object hidden behind the eye, partially sensed, but not clarified.
S9: I know it can easily be seen that way by others. But, the Absolute Awareness is not an object, as in a mind object. You don’t sense it in the common understanding of that word, as through the senses, (all 6). It is more of a Spiritual Sight if you will.
Q: Jesus, “For those who have eyes to see.” (Please don’t jump to conclusions about the sky god here.)
In fact, Ultimate Awareness is the only thing (not really a thing/thing, language is so difficult sometimes) that isn’t a mind object. The mind is within Awareness like an ongoing dream, and not the other way around. And, they are not equal to each other or actually separate either. Crazy as that may seem at first hearing, it is absolutely true. I have seen this.
R: Affirming a subjective absolute is inherently fictional.
S9: Perhaps, if you misunderstood the 'ISNESS' of Awareness, and only mimicked it with your mind.
R: (should be ) Dropped in practice.
S9: If it is dropped in practice, this is only because first you misunderstood Awareness, and then you dropped your misunderstood awareness. It isn’t actually possible to drop the Ultimate Awareness.
R: Honoring this fiction just cements it and blocks practice.
S9: Overly honoring your practice can also block direct seeing, or what I loving call ‘Right View.’ Let go of ‘EVERY mind THING,’ and look directly.
This however doesn't mean to stop practice, by any means. It means to see it correctly as the finger pointing and not as the goal, or an object of worship.
X: What you are talking about, the awareness and sense of being is simply the luminosity aspect. It is not the empty aspect I am talking about.
S9: Could you please explain your ideas about the difference between luminosity and emptiness aspects to me, right here and now? I’m not sure that jumping around and explaining multiple phases is helping me very much. I believe if we address a topic at a time in some detail, it might be more useful to me.
I don't know how to do the multiple quote thing. Hope this is ok. Here my responses to you key points
S9: Please don’t misunderstand me. : ^ )
I am not being purposefully disrespectful of practice. How could I do that, and continue to have a practice of my own, daily?
RH Ok
S9 In my practice, I trying watch my breath in every waking moment of the day, and whenever I wake up during the night, with some good/increasing success as the years pass.
In my practice I use breath to hold my mind close at hand (what some have called, “Holding the Rope of God,” meaning it keeps the mind more getting lost in the world), while I look directly at the Ultimate.
RH Ok. Sustained concentration.
S9: Very often in practice, we just give ourselves one more thing to think about, and when certain siddhis (psychic powers) begin, we fall in love with them as a proof that we are special. This can become a barrier as well.
RH Indeed
S9: May I ask you what your practice is?
RH Sure. “Non-dual Samadhi”, “No object” or Bright Precise Totality ( Body-Mind/World as presents), No subject (subject drops off at the end of the narrow path of concentration).
S9: Could I understand this to be chiding? I prefer not to, and to give you the benefit of the doubt until proved wrong. I simply see this type of statement as your own passionate way of relaying your opinion.
RH This is not a chiding or a personal slag. “Ultimate reality” is a relative idea. A thought. Literally a fiction that falls away in traceless awakening. If you unconsciously retain this idea , traceless awakening is blocked. It needs to be dropped in practice.
S9: I think we can agree on this, but I call this the Witness. Ultimate Awareness is not the Witnessing function. We divide on what comes next.
RH. The reply is the same as the last one. .... “Ultimate reality, ultimate awareness.”
S9: You are quite right in this. Some people refer to this portion of the mind as being the "Witness." Witness Mind is not the Ultimate either.
RH. Any notion of “Ultimate” points to something hidden behind the eye. An unconsciously held idea.
S9: I know it can easily be seen that way by others. But, the Absolute Awareness is not an object, as in a mind object. You don’t sense it in the common understanding of that word, as through the senses, (all 6). It is more of a Spiritual Sight if you will.
RH. Once again this is the same matter. As above.
Q: Jesus, “For those who have eyes to see.” (Please don’t jump to conclusions about the sky god here.)
RH. I'll leave Jesus to you, Respectfully .
S9In fact, Ultimate Awareness is the only thing (not really a thing/thing, language is so difficult sometimes) that isn’t a mind object. The mind is within Awareness like an ongoing dream, and not the other way around. And, they are not equal to each other or actually separate either. Crazy as that may seem at first hearing, it is absolutely true. I have seen this.
RH. This is a familiar perception of the Form/Emptiness field. This is your global body/mind. But there is an identification with emptiness here because it has not been clarified in practice.. This is where a teacher would say ....... “only 50% !”
S9: Perhaps, if you misunderstood the 'ISNESS' of Awareness, and only mimicked it with your mind.
RH. There is no other kind but mimickry, “ISNESS” is an idea.
S9: If it is dropped in practice, this is only because first you misunderstood Awareness, and then you dropped your misunderstood awareness. It isn’t actually possible to drop the Ultimate Awareness.
RH “Ultimate Awareness” is an unconscious idea shaping your world. In traceless awakening “ultimate awareness” falls away.
S9: Overly honoring your practice can also block direct seeing, or what I loving call ‘Right View.’ Let go of ‘EVERY mind THING,’ and look directly.
RH Practice is just practice. Does a doctor practice medicine or just think about it?
S9 “Let go of ‘EVERY mind THING,’ and look directly.”
RH Good advice. Let go of Mind too.
S9This however doesn't mean to stop practice, by any means. It means to see it correctly as the finger pointing and not as the goal, or an object of worship.
Practice is practice. Worship is attachment to “The Ultimate. _______” of your choice.
S9. My conclusion here is that where we differ is around Practice and Idea/language. .It may be that these difference are a matter of interface. We can understand each other I sure. With respect.:)
S9: Ultimate Reality would only be a relative idea if Ultimate Reality was one more mind object, but it is not. Ultimate Reality is outside, or transcends, the mind. Ultimate Reality is not just another dimension on top of this worldly dimension, and so is not really in comparison with Samsara. It is the One (and only).
Nirvana is Samsara/Mara seen correctly, (Samsara is simply a mistaken view). Nirvana is apart from illusions of the mind. Ultimate Reality is Nirvana (same/same) without any other. Unless Nirvana is only in my unconscious confusions, or something stuck behind my eyes as you say. Or are you saying that Nirvana is just a word, or an idea?
I personal do not believe that Nirvana is just a word. I see it as an actuality.
I also see that anyone dropping every thing and every thought and also Nirvana, as a person wishing for the nothingness of physical death, as it is often understood.
(You are throwing out the baby with the bath water.) This is in excess.
Do you see life as being temporary, and then completely gone…Poof! Wouldn't that be like a computer or a machine...all process?
I have to tell you. I suspect that you don’t know what is unconscious, and what is not…it is unconscious after all. ; ^ )
R: This is where a teacher would say ....... “only 50% !”
S9: This is where I would say to a teacher of this sort, “I hope you can find the other 50% soon, as I have.” ; ^ )
RH. “ISNESS” is an idea.
S9: Huh! I hope you too can find the other 50% soon. ; ^ )
RH: In traceless awakening “ultimate awareness” falls away.
S9: Ultimate Awareness is Awareness without any ideas. But it is Aware of Awareness, or said slightly differently, Nirvana is Aware of Nirvana…and it is not simply lights out. If I just wanted the light out, I would hit myself on the head really hard.
RH Practice is just practice.
S9: Practice is effort, and effort is an idea. It serves a very good purpose, granted, but it is still a part of the mind, and an idea. The concept of practice is that you can improve through its use. How could such as that be empty of ideas? Pungji said, "It is the last idea, that cancels all other ideas."
RH: Good advice. Let go of Mind, too.
S9: Exactly. I know you feel that you have the corner on this market, but I see you as mind bound. I fully understand that you equally see me in this way. “Oh who is right, who is right?” S9 wringing hands!
R: My conclusion here is that where we differ is around Practice and Idea/language.
S9: No, I think we very much agree up to a point, and then we go off in totally different directions, IMPO.
R: We can understand each other I am sure.
S9: Maybe, but I think on some points we actually disagree for the time being. That is okay, because sooner or later one of us, or both of us will grow closer to the actual Truth of this matter. I am highly optimistic in this, because this is our spiritual heritage.
Comments
Agreed, DD.
I'm a long way from enlightenment, but I rarely ever dream and the absence of dreams is something that just happened naturally as a result of daytime practice.
.
Diamond Sutra, another Prajnaparamita scripture's concluding stanza is basically the same as Phena Sutta:
"So I say to you -
This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:"
"Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream;
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream."
"So is all conditioned existence to be seen."
Thus spoke Buddha.
Your translation of the above stanza is different to my Thich Nhat Hahn translation of the Prajnaparamita Diamond Sutra which says:
"All composed things are like a dream,
a phantom, a drop of dew, a flash of lightening.
That is how to meditate on them,
that is how to observe them. "
For me, however, Phena Sutta is more complete.
Kind regards,
Dazzle
.
.
Re #155 ....Hi there, and many thanks for providing that textual information Shenpen nangwa - but actually I've been an offline Tibetan Buddhist practitioner for many years and so I'm already aware of the practices, teachings and so forth on matters concerning the bhumis, dream yoga, 'clear light of sleep ' etc. The rare dreams I do have are usually predictions of things which happen in the future - though that's not something I normally discuss in public, which I'm sure you will appreciate .;)
However, my post was actually meant for Dhamma Dhatu !
With kind wishes to you,
Dazzle
S9: Where are the studies, which prove this? Sounds a bit hocus/pokus to me. ; ^ )
I know that extreme meditators often sleep less, but they say this is because meditation is so restful to the body that it equals some amount of sleep time in body refreshment. Even so some Deep Sleep and REM are necessary to the body’s repairing itself, which is an ongoing job.
Warm Regards,
S9
____________
I cant pinpoint a Nikaya reference but it is quite clear in the Dzogchen and Mahamudra literature that as one develops practice their dreams go from being discursive or karmic to a state of control and clarity and finally to complete cessation of dreams without the loss of awareness.
I Googled every which way and back again, about if Buddha slept. I figuring if he didn’t sleep, maybe some others could pull this off too. I even read an article about Buddha’s supernatural powers.
They had him doing off the wall things like eating 1 sesame seed a day, only, etc. But, even that article didn’t say Buddha went sleepless after Realization. So guess I will have to just put that in the "wait and see" pile.
; ^ )
I personally believe they were speaking more metaphorically about being Awake all of the time, even as the body slept, perhaps more like lucid dreaming might be…but now we are all guessing aren’t we. So, I guess I’ll give it a rest. That is unless someone finds something further.
Warm Regards,
S9
sorry, i didnt know you were referring to sleep itself.
In the tradition that I am familiar with practitioners utilize the dream/sleep state for practice. at first we have karmic dreams that are beyond control and usually are completely ordinary and reflect our daily or past experiences, after we get some acumen in practice we are able to control the experiences of dreams and often times have lucid dreams, and toward the end or the path our dream "visions" cease and one rests in the so called nature of mind, or naked empty awareness in the sleep state.
the practitioner still gets rest its just the dream experiences that are tracked and change.
X: The Emptiness you are talking about is not my definition of Emptiness.
S9: Yes, the emptiness you are speaking of is only empty of one thing, any kind of identity, am I correct? But, it is full to bursting with everything else, is that right?
It is indeed subtle when speaking of these things. I sometimes wonder if we aren’t simply talking by each other. Because when you define what I have said/think, you are often not really seeing it quite like I meant it.
I think you have my I Am as some sort of personification, a sneeky little ego in disquise, am I right? That of course is not the case of it.
X: As Greg Goode have said in http://www.heartofnow.com/files/emptiness.html:
S9: Yes, I read this just previously, co-incidentally. It was pretty good, but off a little bit in my way of seeing it.
X: For those who encounter emptiness teachings after they've become familiar with awareness teachings, it's very tempting to misread the emptiness teachings by substituting terms.
S9: Don’t we all at some point. : ^ ) I feel that you are missing some things by a silly little millimeter, too. But then maybe like you, I am not hearing you correctly.
I am not seeing emptiness as the opposite of fullness, if that is what you are worried about. It is a whole other dimension than duality. 'I Am' is not separate from Mara, It is instead of, or perspective.
X: I found a lot in the emptiness teachings to be quite INcomprehensible!
S9: I don’t find it incomprehensible, anymore. I call it home.
X: I tried to let the emptiness teachings speak for themselves.
S9; I go right to the horses mouth. I look directly at I Am/Awareness, and let it teach me (Osmosis? smile)…but not in words, as my actually Being/I Am. (This has absolutely no connection to the identity that is called S9.)
X: It speaks of selves and things as essenceless and free.
S9: Perhaps free of mental essence, I will give you that. But not free of Awareness Essence, by any stretch of the imagination, my friend. : ^ )
I am not on the top of some mountain, in splendid separation and away from the world. Mara is Nirvana, when seen correctly. This however does not mean that they are identical.
Respectfully,
S9
No you are right DD was speaking about dreams not sleep, my bad. Thank you for being gracious to me. I was having a senior moment. ; ^ )
Although, I still believe it is more like lucid dreaming, although I may be wrong.
Re: Quote: DD: Enlightened beings do not dream very much. Dreams are mental formations generally born of discursive mind. Your assertion about being trained to dream is contradictory. An advanced practitioner does not dream much or at all.
Warm Regards,
S9
___________
once one can recognize the dream state one has a greater capacity to recognize the illusory nature of the waking state and the bardo, this training allows us to be present and in control during the most difficult situations life will bring like the dying process.
dreams arent negative but they can be seen as ways to track development and as tools for practice. There is nothing really undesirable about them.
S9: It sounds like you are declaring there is nothing but the mind. So that when Buddha Woke Up to Buddha Nature it was only an improvement on the mind. Is that how you see it?
Please don’t smother me in sutras as an answer. : ^ (
Respectfully,
S9
As for nothing but the mind-what do you mean? And what does "mind" mean to you? What is it composed of?
One should first refine the I AM experience in the 4 aspects I mentioned, then realise the non-dual nature of Awareness (Stage 4) which means rather than seeing Awareness as the background presence and being behind all phenomena (I AM stage), one sees all transience as Awareness itself and there is no more Subject and Object, hearer-heard, seer-seen duality, one sees through division of inside and outside. However at this level the understanding is still like subject-object inseparability, one experiences non-dual where everything seen, heard, tasted, everything experienced reveal themselves as Non-Dual Presence yet there is still a sense of a permanent subject in which objects are inseparable from. Then afterwards realise that Awareness is actually all manifestations and there is no ontological essence (Stage 5), which is Anatta.. Then one can better appreciate the dependently originated (empty) nature of Awareness (Stage 6).
At the I AM stage one cannot appreciate the empty nature of awareness because awareness is still seen as distinct from transient phenomena, and is itself permanent, unchanging, independent. One must overcome the absolute-relative dichotomy through non-dual insight first before being able to appreciate transience and emptiness and understand that luminosity, awareness, presence, nothing is denied, only its empty nature understood.
As I said, Buddha Nature in Tibetan Buddhism is described as the inseparability of luminosity and emptiness. Most people however skew to the luminosity side and fail to see its emptiness. The inseparability of luminosity and emptiness is always already the case.
Do take some time to read through this article by Thusness: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/04/emptiness-as-viewless-view.html
http://www.byomakusuma.org/Ved%C3%A0ntavis%C3%A0visShentong/tabid/87/Default.aspx
Sankaràcàrya even mentions the exact opposite view of what Sàntarakùita mentioned above and refutes him. Sàntarakùita says, “The error in the view of these philosophers is a slight one – due only to the assertion of eternality of cognition.” About the Chittamatra, Sankara says the error in the view of these philosophy is only slight - they believe the non-dual mind as changing moment to moment, we believe it as unchanging eternal.
If the meaning of the Uttara Tantra is what the Shentongpas make it out to be, it would have existed in the Indian sources too. Sankara would certainly have written that the view of these Buddhist philosophers as what the Vedas had always taught and that Buddhism is just a branch of Hinduism. Even today, if any Indian Hindu philosopher comes across the Shentong view, they would be most happy to embrace it as the correct view and take it as a solid proof that Buddhism is just a branch of Hinduism and the Buddha did not teach anything new. This of course blatantly contradicts what the Buddha himself said in Mahayana, Theravada, and Sarvàstivàda Sutras and Sàstra-s. The Buddha said that he taught something that had been lost for a long time. But the Vedas and the Vedic Bràhmaõa-s of the Buddha’s time, whom the Buddha met, had been and are still teaching the existence of true âtmà, and ‘eternal non-dual cognition’ as the Ultimate Reality.
If we glance through the Jain literature, we again find that no Jain scholar mentions that the Buddhists believed in an eternal / permanent non-dual cognition as the ultimate reality. At least, those Jain scholars after Asanga should have done so, if that was how the Uttara Tantra had been interpreted in India.
If we analyze both the Hindu Sankaràcàrya’s and the Buddhist Sàntarakùita’s refutation, we find that both agree with the view of the Hindu Advaita Vedànta, which is that the ultimate reality (âtmà) is an unchanging, eternal non-dual cognition and that the Buddhists as a whole do not agree that the ultimate reality is an eternal, unchanging non-dual cognition, but rather an changing eternal non-dual cognition. These statements found in the 6<sup>th</sup> century Hindu and the 9<sup>th</sup> century Buddhist (both were after the Uttara Tantra and Asanga), show that the ultimate reality as an unchanging, eternal non-dual cognition is a Hindu view and is non-existent amongst the Buddhists of India. Not only was such a view non-existent amongst Buddhists of India, but also it was refuted as a wrong view by scholars like Sàntarakùita. He even writes that if and when Buddhists use the word ‘eternal’ (nitya), it means ‘pariõàmi nitya’, i.e., changing eternal, and not the Hindu kind of eternal, which always remains unchanged.
The Hindu âtmà is not only non-dual cognition but is also unchanging, eternal, and truly existing. Sankaràcàrya defines existence (sat) in hisTattvaboda as that which remains the same in all the 3 times (past, present, future). In the commentary by Gauóapàda (who was Sankaràcàrya’s Guru’s Guru), of the Mànóukya Upaniùada, in verse number 96, he calls the eternally really existing non-dual cognition is non-relational, i.e., free from reference points. In the 37<sup>th</sup> verse of the same work, this non-dual, eternal, really existing cognition is free from all sense organs, i.e., free from the dualistic mind (namshe). So the Upaniùadic view is that the really existing, eternal / permanent, non-dual, non-referential cognition is the âtmà, and this is not dualistic mind. This Upanishadic view existed even before the Buddha, and this was what Sankaràcàrya expounded very clearly and most powerfully around the 6<sup>th</sup> century. This view, similar to this Sankara view, was refuted by Sàntarakùita as a wrong view.
Just a tiny question and I will answer at length later when I have more time to think and compose.
I really don’t understand how ‘changing’ (Whether eternal or not) could be considered non-dual. Changing to what?
Respectfully,
S9
Meaning, there is actually no movement being experienced, no change from this to that.
Only from the viewpoint of a separate observer that is unchanging do we perceive things as changing from this to that.There is no 'thing' that can become something else. There is no something transforming into something. There is no coming or going.
There is just This, One Sound, One Thought, no this coming from there and going to there. No movement. This is well explained in the last section 'From the Witness to Pure Consciousness' in Greg Goode's article http://www.heartofnow.com/files/atmananda.html
As manifestation without observer-observed duality, there is just That - firewood in its suchness, and firewood does not turn into ashes.
In Zen Master Dogen's word,
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/search/label/Zen%20Master%20Dogen
Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death.
This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death.
Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring.
Thus as Thusness said before:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/mistaken-reality-of-amness.html
In naked awareness, there is no splitting of attributes and objectification of these attributes into different groups of the same experience. So thoughts and sense perceptions are not disowned and the nature of impermanence is taken in wholeheartedly in the experience of no-self. ‘Impermanence’ is never what it seems to be, never what that is understood in conceptual thoughts. ‘Impermanence’ is not what the mind has conceptualized it to be. In non-dual experience, the true face of impermanence nature is experienced as happening without movement, change without going anywhere. This is the “what is” of impermanence. It is just so.
p.s. Excerpt from Greg Goode's article:
Realization isn’t an improvement. It is more like Clarity, or a seeing of Actuality. So it isn’t one more step on a ladder, going up/up/up. It is more like dispensing with the ladder all together.
Anything that can be thought is the mind. Mind is simply a bundle of thoughts.
Realization isn’t something you do.
Peace,
S9
Forgive me, but it seems a contradiction to say that eternity is the constantly unchanging changing or is it the constantly changing unchanging, whatever. Now, you might say the changing never stops (and get away with it in finitude) and so it is constant change. But, I don’t believe that you can go on to call that unchanging changing and say this happens in eternity.
You might be able to prove such things on paper, (many busy minded scholars do), but I seriously doubt that you could experience such a phenomenon.
I do understand the concept of the Tao as being One Unity and therefore everything merely rearranging with nothing ever lost, but I see that as an excellent description of finitude, and not as being transcendent of finitude. Now this may go on infinitely, but infinity and eternal is not actually the same thing, as infinite speaks about time and eternity transcends time. This is not just a difference in word choice. From what I have witnessed personally, this difference is an Actuality.
I hope you don’t mind that I’m taking what you have said here in pieces, as it is a lot to consider.
Respectfully,
S9
The non-dual, non-existant, luminescent rigpa (awareness) must be distinguished from ordinary mind and mental processes in order for Buddhanature (tathagatagarbha, dharmadhatu, dharmakaya) to be fully recognized and integrated.
So its not an improvement on mind but a recognition of and complete integration with nature.
Yet, nothing ever moves! Movement implies from this to that. You do not ever experience movement in transience. You will get a feel of what this means when you truly experience non-dual directly. It is not a theory, not a concept, it's something you experience and see very very clearly. No movement is actually experienced in non-dual presence which arises AS the transient sound, thought, sight, etc.
Movement is simply a thought projection, a reflection on a past experience and imposing the sense of duality (an unchanging 'me' having experienced those changes) into the picture, giving a sense of a self having experienced external things moving through time, and the sense of self gives a sense of linkage and coordination. When we talk about change, most of us think of things and entities that comes, and then goes somewhere, or transforms into something. But this is not the case in direct experience, it is a presumption. In direct non-dual awareness, nothing moves. There is no 'me' experiencing changing sounds moving or transforming from this to that, there is just SOUND. Then THOUGHT. SIGHT. Everything appearing vividly as Presence, disjoint, spontaneous, without a separate perceiver or thinker or experiencer. It's not one thought transforming to another, it's just One Thought, spontaneous, disjoint, uncoordinated, without a thinker. Firewood does not turn into ash, firewood is fully and completely present and abiding as the phenomenal expression of firewood, ash is fully and completely present and abiding as the phenomena expression of firewood, no before or after, no this becoming that.
As my friend Longchen who has clear non-dual insights also said years ago:
Do you know how present moment feels like? It feels that everything is not moving. This is because awareness is fully aligned with changes at the precise present moment. It is not because the mind has being stopped.
Zen Master Seung Sahn actually said the same thing too:
http://www.buddhasvillage.com/teachings/time.htm
Zen Master Seung Sahn elaborated on this topic in his excellent book The Compass of Zen (p. 143):
"Everyone thinks that this is extremely difficult teaching, something beyond their reach or experience. How can things appear and disappear, and yet there is, originally, even in this constantly moving world, no appearing and disappearing? A student once asked me, 'The Mahaparinirvana-sutra seems very confusing. Everything is always moving. And yet everything is not moving? I don't understand this Buddhism . . .' But there is a very easy way to understand this: Sometime you go to a movie. You see an action movie about a good man and a bad man--lots of fighting, cars moving very fast, and explosions all over the place. Everything is always moving very quickly. Our daily lives have this quality: everything is constantly moving, coming and going, nonstop. It seems like there is no stillness-place. But this movie is really only a very long strip of film. In one second, there are something like fourteen frames. Each frame is a separate piece of action. But in each frame, nothing is moving. Everything is completely still. Each frame, one by one, is a complete picture. In each frame, nothing ever comes or goes, or appears or disappears. Each frame is complete stillness. The film projector moves the frames very quickly, and all of these frames run past the lens very fast, so the action on-screen seems to happen nonstop. There is no break in the movement of things. But actually when you take this strip of film and hold it up to the light with your hands, there is nothing moving at all. Each frame is complete. Each moment is completely not-moving action.
"Our minds and the whole universe are like that. This world is impermanent. Everything is always changing, changing, changing, moving, moving, moving, nonstop. Even one second of our lives seems full of so much movement and change in this world that we see. But your mind--right now--is like a lens whose shutter speed is one divided by infinite time. We call that moment-mind. If you attain that mind, then this whole world's movement stops. From moment to moment you can see this world completely stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Like the film, you perceive every frame--this moment--which is infinitely still and complete. In the frame, nothing is moving. There is no time, and nothing appears or disappears in that box. But this movie projector--your thinking mind--is always moving, around and around and around, so you experience this world as constantly moving and you constantly experience change, which is impermanence. You lose moment-mind by following your conceptual thinking, believing that it is real."
I also find U.G. Krishnamurti's writings helpful on the topic of disjointed, spontaneous, non-dual sensations/presence:
http://www.well.com/user/jct/mystiq2.htm
Your movement of thought interferes with the process of touch, just as it does with the other senses. Anything you touch is always translated as 'hard', 'soft', 'warm', 'cold', 'wet', 'dry', and so on.
You do not realize it, but it is your thinking that creates your own body. Without this thought process there is no body consciousness -- which is to say there is no body at all. My body exists for other people; it does not exist for me; there are only isolated points of contact, impulses of touch which are not tied together by thought. So the body is not different from the objects around it; it is a set of sensations like any others. Your body does not belong to you.
Perhaps I can give you the 'feel' of this. I sleep four hours at night, no matter what time I go to bed. Then I lie in bed until morning fully awake. I don't know what is lying there in the bed; I don't know whether I'm lying on my left side or my right side -- for hours and hours I lie like this. If there is any noise outside -- a bird or something -- it just echoes in me. I listen to the "flub-dub-flub-dub" of my heart and don't know what it is. There is no body between the two sheets -- the form of the body is not there. If the question is asked, "What is in there?" there is only an awareness of the points of contact, where the body is in contact with the bed and the sheets, and where it is in contact with itself, at the crossing of the legs, for example. There are only the sensations of touch from these points of contact, and the rest of the body is not there. There is some kind of heaviness, probably the gravitational pull, something very vague. There is nothing inside which links up these things. Even if the eyes are open and looking at the whole body, there are still only the points of contact, and they have no connection with what I am looking at. If I want to try to link up these points of contact into the shape of my own body, probably I will succeed, but by the time it is completed the body is back in the same situation of different points of contact. The linkage cannot stay. It is the same sort of thing when I'm sitting or standing. There is no body.
Can you tell me how mango juice tastes? I can't. You also cannot; but you try to relive the memory of mango juice now -- you create for yourself some kind of an experience of how it tastes -- which I cannot do. I must have mango juice on my tongue -- seeing or smelling it is not enough -- in order to be able to bring that past knowledge into operation and to say "Yes, this is what mango juice tastes like." This does not mean that personal preferences and 'tastes' change. In a market my hand automatically reaches out for the same items that I have liked all my life. But because I cannot conjure up a mental experience, there can be no craving for foods which are not there.
Smell plays a greater part in your daily life than does taste. The olfactory organs are constantly open to odors. But if you do not interfere with the sense of smell, what is there is only an irritation in the nose. It makes no difference whether you are smelling cow dung or an expensive French perfume -- you rub the nose and move on.
...................
Is there in you an entity which you call the 'I' or the 'mind' or the 'self'? Is there a co- ordinator who is co-ordinating what you are looking at with what you are listening to, what you are smelling with what you are tasting, and so on? Or is there anything which links together the various sensations originating from a single sense -- the flow of impulses from the eyes, for example? Actually, there is always a gap between any two sensations. The co-ordinator bridges that gap: he establishes himself as an illusion of continuity.
In the natural state there is no entity who is co-ordinating the messages from the different senses. Each sense is functioning independently in its own way. When there is a demand from outside which makes it necessary to co-ordinate one or two or all of the senses and come up with a response, still there is no co-ordinator, but there is a temporary state of co- ordination. There is no continuity; when the demand has been met, again there is only the unco-ordinated, disconnected, disjointed functioning of the senses. This is always the case. Once the continuity is blown apart -- not that it was ever there; but the illusory continuity -- it's finished once and for all.
Can this make any sense to you? It cannot. All that you know lies within the framework of your experience, which is of thought. This state is not an experience. I am only trying to give you a 'feel' of it, which is, unfortunately, misleading.
When there is no co-ordinator, there is no linking of sensations, there is no translating of sensations; they stay pure and simple sensations. I do not even know that they are sensations. I may look at you as you are talking. The eyes will focus on your mouth because that is what is moving, and the ears will receive the sound vibrations. There is nothing inside which links up the two and says that it is you talking. I may be looking at a spring bubbling out of the earth and hear the water, but there is nothing to say that the noise being heard is the sound of water, or that that sound is in any way connected with what I am seeing. I may be looking at my foot, but nothing says that this is my foot. When I am walking, I see my feet moving -- it is such a funny thing: "What is that which is moving?"
What functions is a primordial consciousness, untouched by thought.
..........
You have a feeling that there is a 'cameraman' who is directing the eyes. But left to themselves -- when there is no 'cameraman' -- the eyes do not linger, but are moving all the time. They are drawn by the things outside. Movement attracts them, or brightness or a color which stands out from whatever is around it. There is no 'I' looking; mountains, flowers, trees, cows, all look at me. The consciousness is like a mirror, reflecting whatever is there outside. The depth, the distance, the color, everything is there, but there is nobody who is translating these things. Unless there is a demand for knowledge about what I am looking at, there is no separation, no distance from what is there. It may not actually be possible to count the hairs on the head of someone sitting across the room, but there is a kind of clarity which seems as if I could.
(Thusness/ByPasser at Dharma Overground, March 2009):
I think realization and development will eventually reach the same destination.
A practitioner that experience the “Self” will initially treat
1.The “Source as the Light of Everything”.
then
2. He/she will eventually move to the experience that the “Light is really the Everything”.
In the first case, the Light will appear to be still and the transience appears to be moving. Collapsing of space and time will only be experienced when one resides in Self. However if the mind continues to see the 'Light' as separated from the 'Everything' , then realization will appear to be apart from development.
In the second case when we experience the “Light is really the Everything”, then Everything will be experienced as manifesting yet not moving. This is the experience of wholeness and completeness in an instantaneous moment or Eternity in a moment. When this experience becomes clear in practice, then witness is seen as the transience. Space and time will also collapse when we experience the completeness and wholeness of transience. An instantaneous moment of manifestation that is complete and whole in its own also does not involve movement and change (No changing thing, only change). Practicing being 'bare' in attention yet at the same time noticing the 3 characteristics will eventually bring us to this point.
However what has a yogi overcome when moving from case 1 to 2 and what exactly is the cause of separation in the first place? I think realizing this cause is of utmost importance for solving the paradox of realization and development.
S: The ability to distinguish between ordinary mind and the true nature of non-dual, empty, awareness.
S9: I believe that we may be in agreement on this. I believe the place where we may part ways is in how we each define Awareness. Do you see Awareness as being Eternal?
S: The non-dual, non-existent, luminescent rigpa (awareness) must be distinguished from ordinary mind and mental processes in order for Buddhanature (tathagatagarbha, dharmadhatu, dharmakaya) to be fully recognized and integrated.
S9: How would you integrate Awareness with nature? Do you feel that nature and Awareness are 2 equal things that have somehow separated?
Respectfully,
S9
I believe that you see me thinking that the witnessing part of the mind, as the same as the ‘I Am.’ Is this the case?
Respectfully,
S9
The "awareness" that I am talking about I see as being neither eternal nor non-eternal. Its completely insubstantial, lucid, and beyond categorization.
I feel that awareness/rigpa is nature. Our delusion and karma is what causes us to remain in a state of confusion rather than integration in our true nature.
Let me question you a little further, as words can be a tricky tool and often impede understanding.
S: I feel that awareness/rigpa is nature.
S9: When you say nature, do you mean trees and grass such nature, or something quite different?
S: The "awareness" that I am talking about, I see as being neither eternal nor non-eternal.
S9: On one level such words are certainly dualistic…
But what is Awareness then? Can we agree that it is outside of time?
S: Its completely insubstantial, lucid, and beyond categorization.
S9: Can you look directly at it, even though it is difficult to describe, or are these collected wisdoms?
Respectfully,
S9
R: Awareness? no such thing. We do acknowledge that right?
S9: No, I can’t agree with that. I will however admit that Awareness isn’t an object or a thing. Will that do?
; ^ )
R: No such entity as "awareness" or "mind".
S9: Yes, no entities or mind objects outside of thought. And thought is a passing dream.
But, Awareness is not a part of this passing dream. Awareness allows the dreaming to take place, albeit temporarily.
R: These are convenient fictions, something to hang our hat on.
S9: What do you base this on?
Respectfully,
S9
there is no fitting translation for Rigpa.
its not an entity.
Yes, i do think we can agree that Rigpa is outside of the concept of time.
To look at it would be do experience it in a subject/object relationship that is dualistic. Its not seen it just is. In a way these are just collected wisdoms, since what we are talking about is the inconceivable.
Explaining all the whys and wherefores of finitude falls into complex speculations. To do so would be like weaving dreams.
I don’t believe that the human mind is up to the task of understanding the whole of finitude, because as fast as you could run it would grow out (be projected) in front of you.
We can however know Awareness directly, as what we are, and know that it is our Original Nature. (Full of its self, Aware of its self as Self, and in no need of other.)
If you say awareness of what is outside of that, you have already left home, because Awareness doesn’t play around with objects and mind objects, or the separations called other. This would be the purview of the dreaming mind.
Respectfully,
S9
in my opinion, proper renunciation and conduct that recognizes the conventional/relative truth is essential for a Dzogchenpa. Even though ones view may be very "high" our conduct should be that of dedicated bodhisattva's.
He says that Rigpa has the nature of spontaneous "goodness" or right conduct? If one has not gone through the appropriate preliminaries can there be the problem of mere licence looking like a radical "letting be" ?
It seems the narrow ethical gate of the precepts has to be passed through, but eventually you embody them. Then a precept against theft for instance is not needed for someone who does not steal.
S: I am referring to the empty, lucid, nature of ultimate reality.
S9: Yes, I thought that was what you were referring to.
Let me explain a bit about how I perceive it. (Looking right at it, but not with my eyes.) I feel that it is vast, and yet without size. It is here but abides in no actual location. It is vital but without motion. You cannot understand it, but you can know it by being it. It is now as ‘Being’ ever ‘Present,’ and not altering in any way by time. It is empty of all thoughts and forms and yet certainly not empty in the sense of being nothing. Am I close to what you see?
S: To look at it would be do experience it in a subject/object relationship that is dualistic.
S9: Yes, when the mind tries to look at it, the mind instantly creates an object. But any object is a dead thing on comparison.
S: It’s not seen it just is. In a way these are just collected wisdoms, since what we are talking about is the inconceivable.
S9: Only inconceivable to the mind, surely. If you don’t try to make it an object, it fills you up.
Funny, my mind still has a taste for that object. : ^ ) and I am not cruel enough to take this away. But, I know the difference.
Respectfully,
S9
As for 'Awareness of what is outside of that', that is not awareness. There is literally nothing outside of awareness. The thought of something outside of awareness is simply a thought-projection, which is an appearance of awareness. Nothing can be perceived without awareness. In fact nothing isn't awareness, it's not that awareness is something that perceives things, but rather whatever IS, sounds, sights, thoughts, IS awareness, there is no subject/object, inner/outer, seer/seen division.
Awareness doesn't play around with objects and mind objects or separations, because there never was any objects apart from awareness.
However even by saying 'awareness', we must understand that that too is like Richard says, 'a convenient fiction'. Doesn't mean presence isn't present, but we musn't see it as something permanent, independent, some kind of entity or essence or substance.
As I was explaining in another forum:
We can talk about this in two ways:
All there is is awareness, in other words, everything you experience is awareness.
Or -
There is just sensations and thoughts and no other thing called awareness, in other words, since there is just sensations and thoughts, those sensations and thoughts are the only 'awareness' there is, there is no separate perceiver or awareness.
Both are the same thing. There is a danger however, in reifying Case 1) into a Brahman, something ultimate, unchanging and independent. Though if it is not reified, that is fine.
Case 2 is what is more commonly explained in classical Nikaya, original Buddhist texts. Even though it never talks about Awareness as the essence of all experiences, it is implied already that awareness is non-dual because there cannot be a subject/object split in anatta, there cannot be a split when all there is is sensations and aggregates.
Reification would be imputing a particular set of sensation as 'Subject' or 'Awareness' while the other set as 'Objects', but in reality, all there is is self-aware sensations and thoughts, if all there is is self-aware manifestation, in other words only sensations and aggregates, and that sensations and aggregates auto-imply awareness, why talk about awareness at all? There is absolutely no reification here, only impermanent dependently originated sensations and thoughts whether they are gross (gross waking dream sensory experience) or subtle (such as dream, astral realms, or the subtler formless I AMness experience).
As Greg Goode said, "once experience doesn't seem divided and once it doesn't seem like there is anything other than consciousness, then the notion of consciousness itself will gently and peacefully dissolve."
P.S. As to Lucky noticing similarities between Advaita and Buddhism in terms of non-dual, I have to say that the non-dual experience in Advaita and Buddhism is exactly the same. The only difference lies in the view, whereby Advaita makes nondual awareness into Pure Subjectivity transcending and encompassing phenomena, but Buddhism sees only vivid and empty (dependently originated) manifestations and thus which leads to subtler realisation of the Anatta and Empty nature of luminosity in Buddhism. The difference thus lies not in non-dual but in Anatta and Emptiness.
There is no hearer, only sounds, hearing is just sounds. No seer, only scenery, the seeing is the scenery. What you call 'awareness' is only just dependently originated phenomena, sounds, sights, thoughts, etc. Absolutely no reification here. Reification would be stating - there is an independent awareness perceiving things, or an unchanging substance, like a mirror, behind all changes. Buddhism's 'awareness has always been so' does not mean a Brahman or an ultimate subject or an ultimate perceiver, rather it means all along there never has been a perceiver, only sensations, thoughts, sounds, sights, just that.
This is what I was trying to say previously, restating it because you said you didn’t understand my reasons for originally saying it.
I think one of the big differences between what I am say or write and what you are saying is that I am looking directly at what I am experiencing personally right now, and you (on the other hand) are relating what someone else realized or experienced, and then conveyed to you, this fellow called Thusness.
Let me just say that ‘there is a lot of slip between the cup and the lip.’
Perhaps you are not actually seeing as clearly, as you might wish, what Thusness witnessed or was saying after the fact to you. Or did you actually experience this yourself at a later date and only borrow his words to save labor? (Let me just say how very much I doubt that, as often what you convey is impossible to actually live, given what I have witnessed.) Although, I can easily see that much of what you say could be figured out in the mind, by one trying hard to understand, albeit often even there it being somewhat contridictory at times.
The reason that I say this is because I spent many years speaking with a fellow who is definitely enlightened, and although he knocked himself out (as we had been dharma friends for decades b/4 his final realization), I still wasn’t getting it 2nd hand. This is because, no matter how clever you may be, and no matter how dedicated, you cannot know Ultimate Being from a distance (that distance being living in the mind.)
I think for a while, I am going to concentrate on where we agree and why, because that is abundant.
Respectfully,
S9
I am no expert on Nagarjuna, and the development of madhyamika, as the writting are extensive, but they seem to most clearly express this.
All one can do is speak from practice , and this is where it is.
I will give you that all notions collapse into sheer experience, even simplicity and your beloved practice. But, Ultimate Experience, itself, does not collapse, (I am not speaking of physical/mental experiences; which are actually mind objects/processes). This Ultimate and Immediate Experience is what I often call Ultimate Awareness.
The reason that you believe everything collapses even Ultimate Awareness (which you do not honor) is because you still have mind being king, or the final abettor or what is possible.
R: I am no expert on Nagarjuna.
S9: No one can understand Nagarjuna completely, unless he is both as bright as Nagarjuna and as advanced spiritually.
I understood that he said even "emptiness was empty of empty," but what was he actually saying…more empty, the real/real empty after that? I doubt this. I believe he was trying to help us transcend the mind and look more directly.
R: All one can do is speak from practice, and this is where it is.
S9: Wouldn’t Nagarjuna also say “empty of practice,”too? Could it be that you are practice bound? Practice is merely the finger pointing. Don’t fall in love with the finger.
Respectfully,
S9
When "Ultimate Awareness" (a massive fiction) also disappears, the world in all its multiplicity is affirmed in its perfection, Samasara is affirmed without distortion. This is traceless.
If there is something hidden behind the eye, taking up the seat of knower, then there is still subtle duality, and the world is not truly affirmed without distortion. You may be talking about something else, I may misunderstand you, but what you seem to consistantly describe is an absolutized object hidden behind the eye, partially sensed, but not clarified. Affirming a subjective absolute is inherently fictional, useful maybe, but dropped in practice. Honoring this fiction just cements it and blocks practice.
with respect
R: Why do you chide practice?
S9: Please don’t misunderstand me. : ^ )
I am not being purposefully disrespectful of practice. How could I do that, and continue to have a practice of my own, daily?
In my practice, I trying watch my breath in every waking moment of the day, and whenever I wake up during the night, with some good/increasing success as the years pass.
In my practice I use breath to hold my mind close at hand (what some have called, “Holding the Rope of God,” meaning it keeps the mind more getting lost in the world), while I look directly at the Ultimate.
R: Practice means going from thinking about this to realizing it.
S9: Very often in practice, we just give ourselves one more thing to think about, and when certain sidhis (psychic powers) begin, we fall in love with them as a proof that we are special. This can become a barrier as well.
R: It is not referring to a formal activity.
S9: May I ask you what your practice is?
R: “(a massive fiction)”
S9: Could I understand this to be chiding? I prefer not to, and to give you the benefit of the doubt until proved wrong. I simply see this type of statement as your own passionate way of relaying your opinion.
Nothing will kill a friendly conversation more quickly than one or both persons starting to take things personally and getting defensive, or even angry.
R: When "Ultimate Awareness" also disappears, the world in all its multiplicity is affirmed in its perfection, Samsara is affirmed without distortion. This is traceless.
S9: I think we can agree on this, but I call this the Witness. Ultimate Awareness is not the Witnessing function. We divide on what comes next.
R: If there is something hidden behind the eye, taking up the seat of knower, then there is still subtle duality, and the world is not truly affirmed without distortion.
S9: You are quite right in this. Some people refer to this portion of the mind as being the "Witness." Witness Mind is not the Ultimate either.
R: You may be talking about something else, I may misunderstand you, but what you seem to consistently describe is an absolutized object hidden behind the eye, partially sensed, but not clarified.
S9: I know it can easily be seen that way by others. But, the Absolute Awareness is not an object, as in a mind object. You don’t sense it in the common understanding of that word, as through the senses, (all 6). It is more of a Spiritual Sight if you will.
Q: Jesus, “For those who have eyes to see.” (Please don’t jump to conclusions about the sky god here.)
In fact, Ultimate Awareness is the only thing (not really a thing/thing, language is so difficult sometimes) that isn’t a mind object. The mind is within Awareness like an ongoing dream, and not the other way around. And, they are not equal to each other or actually separate either. Crazy as that may seem at first hearing, it is absolutely true. I have seen this.
R: Affirming a subjective absolute is inherently fictional.
S9: Perhaps, if you misunderstood the 'ISNESS' of Awareness, and only mimicked it with your mind.
R: (should be ) Dropped in practice.
S9: If it is dropped in practice, this is only because first you misunderstood Awareness, and then you dropped your misunderstood awareness. It isn’t actually possible to drop the Ultimate Awareness.
R: Honoring this fiction just cements it and blocks practice.
S9: Overly honoring your practice can also block direct seeing, or what I loving call ‘Right View.’ Let go of ‘EVERY mind THING,’ and look directly.
This however doesn't mean to stop practice, by any means. It means to see it correctly as the finger pointing and not as the goal, or an object of worship.
Warm Regards,
S9
X: What you are talking about, the awareness and sense of being is simply the luminosity aspect. It is not the empty aspect I am talking about.
S9: Could you please explain your ideas about the difference between luminosity and emptiness aspects to me, right here and now? I’m not sure that jumping around and explaining multiple phases is helping me very much. I believe if we address a topic at a time in some detail, it might be more useful to me.
Respectfully,
S9
S9: Please don’t misunderstand me. : ^ )
I am not being purposefully disrespectful of practice. How could I do that, and continue to have a practice of my own, daily?
RH Ok
S9 In my practice, I trying watch my breath in every waking moment of the day, and whenever I wake up during the night, with some good/increasing success as the years pass.
In my practice I use breath to hold my mind close at hand (what some have called, “Holding the Rope of God,” meaning it keeps the mind more getting lost in the world), while I look directly at the Ultimate.
RH Ok. Sustained concentration.
S9: Very often in practice, we just give ourselves one more thing to think about, and when certain siddhis (psychic powers) begin, we fall in love with them as a proof that we are special. This can become a barrier as well.
RH Indeed
S9: May I ask you what your practice is?
RH Sure. “Non-dual Samadhi”, “No object” or Bright Precise Totality ( Body-Mind/World as presents), No subject (subject drops off at the end of the narrow path of concentration).
S9: Could I understand this to be chiding? I prefer not to, and to give you the benefit of the doubt until proved wrong. I simply see this type of statement as your own passionate way of relaying your opinion.
RH This is not a chiding or a personal slag. “Ultimate reality” is a relative idea. A thought. Literally a fiction that falls away in traceless awakening. If you unconsciously retain this idea , traceless awakening is blocked. It needs to be dropped in practice.
S9: I think we can agree on this, but I call this the Witness. Ultimate Awareness is not the Witnessing function. We divide on what comes next.
RH. The reply is the same as the last one. .... “Ultimate reality, ultimate awareness.”
S9: You are quite right in this. Some people refer to this portion of the mind as being the "Witness." Witness Mind is not the Ultimate either.
RH. Any notion of “Ultimate” points to something hidden behind the eye. An unconsciously held idea.
S9: I know it can easily be seen that way by others. But, the Absolute Awareness is not an object, as in a mind object. You don’t sense it in the common understanding of that word, as through the senses, (all 6). It is more of a Spiritual Sight if you will.
RH. Once again this is the same matter. As above.
Q: Jesus, “For those who have eyes to see.” (Please don’t jump to conclusions about the sky god here.)
RH. I'll leave Jesus to you, Respectfully
S9In fact, Ultimate Awareness is the only thing (not really a thing/thing, language is so difficult sometimes) that isn’t a mind object. The mind is within Awareness like an ongoing dream, and not the other way around. And, they are not equal to each other or actually separate either. Crazy as that may seem at first hearing, it is absolutely true. I have seen this.
RH. This is a familiar perception of the Form/Emptiness field. This is your global body/mind. But there is an identification with emptiness here because it has not been clarified in practice.. This is where a teacher would say ....... “only 50% !”
S9: Perhaps, if you misunderstood the 'ISNESS' of Awareness, and only mimicked it with your mind.
RH. There is no other kind but mimickry, “ISNESS” is an idea.
S9: If it is dropped in practice, this is only because first you misunderstood Awareness, and then you dropped your misunderstood awareness. It isn’t actually possible to drop the Ultimate Awareness.
RH “Ultimate Awareness” is an unconscious idea shaping your world. In traceless awakening “ultimate awareness” falls away.
S9: Overly honoring your practice can also block direct seeing, or what I loving call ‘Right View.’ Let go of ‘EVERY mind THING,’ and look directly.
RH Practice is just practice. Does a doctor practice medicine or just think about it?
S9 “Let go of ‘EVERY mind THING,’ and look directly.”
RH Good advice. Let go of Mind too.
S9This however doesn't mean to stop practice, by any means. It means to see it correctly as the finger pointing and not as the goal, or an object of worship.
Practice is practice. Worship is attachment to “The Ultimate. _______” of your choice.
S9. My conclusion here is that where we differ is around Practice and Idea/language. .It may be that these difference are a matter of interface. We can understand each other I sure. With respect.:)
just click the quote then it open a 'reply to thread' window
select the part that you do not want to appear in your answer and delete
then type the word quote within brackets "[" , "]" and type your answer to that quote
when you finish your answer type again /quote within brackets then select and delete the part you dont want and type the answer etc.
trick is putting the word quote and /quote with in [..]brackets (no need to bold them)
this is the way i use until some one provids us a more efficent method
RH. “Ultimate reality” is a relative idea.
S9: Ultimate Reality would only be a relative idea if Ultimate Reality was one more mind object, but it is not. Ultimate Reality is outside, or transcends, the mind. Ultimate Reality is not just another dimension on top of this worldly dimension, and so is not really in comparison with Samsara. It is the One (and only).
Nirvana is Samsara/Mara seen correctly, (Samsara is simply a mistaken view). Nirvana is apart from illusions of the mind. Ultimate Reality is Nirvana (same/same) without any other. Unless Nirvana is only in my unconscious confusions, or something stuck behind my eyes as you say. Or are you saying that Nirvana is just a word, or an idea?
I personal do not believe that Nirvana is just a word. I see it as an actuality.
I also see that anyone dropping every thing and every thought and also Nirvana, as a person wishing for the nothingness of physical death, as it is often understood.
(You are throwing out the baby with the bath water.) This is in excess.
Do you see life as being temporary, and then completely gone…Poof! Wouldn't that be like a computer or a machine...all process?
I have to tell you. I suspect that you don’t know what is unconscious, and what is not…it is unconscious after all. ; ^ )
R: This is where a teacher would say ....... “only 50% !”
S9: This is where I would say to a teacher of this sort, “I hope you can find the other 50% soon, as I have.” ; ^ )
RH. “ISNESS” is an idea.
S9: Huh! I hope you too can find the other 50% soon. ; ^ )
RH: In traceless awakening “ultimate awareness” falls away.
S9: Ultimate Awareness is Awareness without any ideas. But it is Aware of Awareness, or said slightly differently, Nirvana is Aware of Nirvana…and it is not simply lights out. If I just wanted the light out, I would hit myself on the head really hard.
RH Practice is just practice.
S9: Practice is effort, and effort is an idea. It serves a very good purpose, granted, but it is still a part of the mind, and an idea. The concept of practice is that you can improve through its use. How could such as that be empty of ideas? Pungji said, "It is the last idea, that cancels all other ideas."
RH: Good advice. Let go of Mind, too.
S9: Exactly. I know you feel that you have the corner on this market, but I see you as mind bound. I fully understand that you equally see me in this way. “Oh who is right, who is right?” S9 wringing hands!
R: My conclusion here is that where we differ is around Practice and Idea/language.
S9: No, I think we very much agree up to a point, and then we go off in totally different directions, IMPO.
R: We can understand each other I am sure.
S9: Maybe, but I think on some points we actually disagree for the time being. That is okay, because sooner or later one of us, or both of us will grow closer to the actual Truth of this matter. I am highly optimistic in this, because this is our spiritual heritage.
Warm Regards,
S9
I give up. :banghead: You are a good person, and I respect you. It is not for me to take any more measure of your views.