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This my first real post, also. I became interested in Buddhism after going through many changes and other misfortunes in my life. I was involved in Anton LaVey's brand of Satanism from the time I was 12 until I was around 24 or 25. If you have read the satanic bible you will know who I am referring to.
I realized that I had been brainwashed and stopped immediately through away all my books and decided that enough was enough. Then I started drinking extremely heavy and once again became involved with this complete waste of time again. I could go on forever with this story, but I want to keep it relatively short. I then became a staunch atheist with a bad attitude lashing out at my family at every mention of the word religion. Then the event in my life that changed my life and attitude happened. After many years of drinking and drugging I had 2 seizures within 2 months of each other. I was informed by my doctor that I was basically killing myself with substances and anger mixed all together.
So, anyways, I realized that I am sober now and should get an education so I am in the process of getting a degree in Microcomputer Technology and getting (hopefully) on the deans list with 4 A's and 2 B's. I think I am getting a little off of the subject but anyways I will have been sober now for one year in February and will never go back to a life of pain and agony again.
I started studying Buddhism almost by mistake. I was looking for some information on a paper for a class I am taking called Interpersonal Communication and the paper was on a subject called "mindfulness" and I kept getting all of these sites on Buddhism so I decided to inquire within. Well, I found what I was looking for all these years: "PEACE". I have found my niche and I plan on studying as long as I live. I am very new to this but I think I found the right site. I took the time to read some of your posts and I really think this will help my development and studies.
I got into it because there is a long tradition of abstracting Buddhist practice from the religious cosmology and authoritarianism, and that appealed to the rationalist mindset I had at the outset. (I am less bigoted about that, now.)
My interest was initially sparked by Hofstadter's discussion of koans in Goedel, Escher, Bach.
Fivebells
I note that the book was written in 1979. You surely know that there is a vast body of work written about consciousness and thought processes since then.
Take a look at David Chalmers work, an Australian philosopher of the mind with a background in mathematics who did many of his work in the U.S.
Hey for my first post. I had a lot of reactions. Thanks tor this.
Some people mentioned being raised in a catholic way and obviously they did not find this something that helped them, otherwise they would not choose the buddhist way.
I can totaly relate to these opinions catholicism wired my brain with guilt, fear of going to hell. Altough i am old enough to know beter this kind of conditiong is hard to beat. I think in buddhism there is no concept like guilt there is regret. I think in judaism there is guilt but there is also the idea that this should be something that is limited in time and in magnitude otherwise feelings of guilt become a sin because you begin to hate .........yourself and..... you become unable to love and help others. Such wisdom!!!
Anyway we all are seeking for something out of curiosity or out of unsatisfaction with our live as it is.
I note that the book was written in 1979. You surely know that there is a vast body of work written about consciousness and thought processes since then.
Didn't he simply say it sparked his interest in Buddhism?
I note that the book was written in 1979. You surely know that there is a vast body of work written about consciousness and thought processes since then.
Yeah, I've read some of it. <i>The Developing Mind</i> was very good...
Take a look at David Chalmers work, an Australian philosopher of the mind with a background in mathematics who did many of his work in the U.S.
Hey, I see he's at ANU (my home town, and where I studied as an undergrad.) I'll be heading back there soon. Perhaps I'll look him up... Thanks for the pointer.
Heh, I read some more about David Chalmers. Very sly. He's making the same basic mistake as MatSalt and aaki was: trying to prove an ontological assertion from reason alone. It's never going to be convincing. The response from John Searles at the bottom of this page seems pretty devastating, to me.
Actually what I'm wondering about is how Hofstadter's Goedel, Escher, Bach. sparked your interest in buddhism when he did not posit a "no-self" view in the book.
I have not read the book but he has pointed out in an interview that many people who read the book did not get his fundamental message: ".... how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter... What is a self, and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle?" That is why he wrote, I am a strange Loop, in 2007 to make himself clear.
Of course, he definitely is not saying he believes in a soul or anything like that. But he seems to be saying that there such a thing as property of "selfness" in a human being. He defined selfness as an aggregate of a person's experineces, his interactions with others and the wide world, the impressions other people have left in his life, etc.
I mentioned Chalmers ( I didn't know that you are australian) because he is a former student of Hofstadter and so expect that Chalmer's ideas would not differ much from him if at all.
Anyway, I like buddhist teachings, honestly do. And I get great insights from gurus which I hope to adopt and apply, especially about meditation.
However I find no convincing reason to believe in the "no-self, empty" theory. It's counter intuitive because if there's one thing I intimately know it's myself.
If that teaching is true then life is just a joke!
I have not read any buddhist work discussing the topic that will convince me otherwise. If anyone can point me to any material, I'll gladly explore it.
Actually what I'm wondering about is how Hofstadter's Goedel, Escher, Bach. sparked your interest in buddhism when he did not posit a "no-self" view in the book.
The book could be said to be concerned with the basis of meaning. He was looking at koans from this perspective. It was the mystery in the koans which got me interested. From there, I read Alan Watts's The Way of Zen (not a very good choice...) and from there, I found the Buddhism section of the local university library, and ranged around, without really understanding what I was reading.
I mentioned Chalmers ( I didn't know that you are australian) because he is a former student of Hofstadter and so expect that Chalmer's ideas would not differ much from him if at all.
Based on what I've read of Chalmers, and what I've read of Hofstadter, I would expect that they probably exchanged pretty sharp words over the pap Chalmers is pushing.
Anyway, I like buddhist teachings, honestly do. And I get great insights from gurus which I hope to adopt and apply, especially about meditation.
However I find no convincing reason to believe in the "no-self, empty" theory. It's counter intuitive because if there's one thing I intimately know it's myself.
If that teaching is true then life is just a joke!
I have not read any buddhist work discussing the topic that will convince me otherwise. If anyone can point me to any material, I'll gladly explore it.
That's good! No reason to believe it, because there's nothing in it to believe!
"No-self" and "empty" point to negations of common beliefs. They are not beliefs in themselves. Also, they are phenomenological assertions, not ontological. Rest in the experience of the present moment, hold the question "What is experiencing this?" and look. There will be nothing to look at. That experience of holding the question and seeing nothing is what no-self means.
However I find no convincing reason to believe in the "no-self, empty" theory. It's counter intuitive because if there's one thing I intimately know it's myself.
It would be more appropriate to translate anatta as "not-self." When people hear "no-self" they think it means they don't exist or something. The Buddha taught that everything is conditioned and thus constantly changing and impermanent, and that includes the aggregates which we consider "self," along with external things which we consider "mine." Therefore anything clung to as "I" or "mine" will inevitably change and decay over time, and this leads to the "self" we've created around these things to suffer. This is not a concept to believe in, it's a simple truth to be seen.
I've always had the desire to be Buddhist, even before I knew what that meant. When I was little (8,9,10) I would pretend to meditate. I'd sit in my room with the doors closed, put classical music, fold my legs and hum My family never really went to church, but when we did I never understood it. It never made sense to me.
So after a lifetime of curiousity, I finally gave in and visited the Buddhist literature section of the book store a few months ago. And that's where it all started
I'm really enjoying everyone's stories! Keep them coming!
If nothing else, you should give credit to Chalmers for having great hair.
Oomundus
Thanks for the reply and to others who replied to my questions elsewhere in the forum. And also for being patient with me. Please excuse me if some of my comments seem offensive. They are said in all honesty.
About that joke thing. That's a reaction based on views I currently hold.
About the no/not self. There's a lot to be said about that but I'm here to listen and try to understand not to give a lecture so I leave it at that.
I'm still reading through the links some of you gave, they're very helpful.
You're all doing very well here, we can learn a thing or two about how to conduct ourselves in forums.
It's christmas time and next month I'm going to India to visit some American and Indian friends, so will give you all a break from me but will pop in from time to time to see if there are posts of interest to me.
F: No-self" and "empty" point to negations of common beliefs. They are not beliefs in themselves. Also, they are phenomenological assertions, not ontological. Rest in the experience of the present moment, hold the question "What is experiencing this?" and look. There will be nothing to look at. That experience of holding the question and seeing nothing is what no-self means.
S9: You are seeing emptiness, because you are looking with your mind. Mind is the wrong tool.
Essence, or Being is more like an intuitional insight. In other words, you can feel your own Presence directly, without any need of formulating it with the mind, or even making it into a mind object by looking at it with the mind.
When I say mind, I mean the brain functioning mind. I do not mean Mind (capital M ), which some spiritual disciplines use to mean a more community Mind, or Cosmic Consciousness, if you will.
I have not read any buddhist work discussing the topic that will convince me otherwise. If anyone can point me to any material, I'll gladly explore it.
The Buddha did not teach 'no-self'. Instead, he taught about the true nature of 'self', that is, what it is, how it arises, how it ceases and, most of all, the effect or result of its arising & ceasing.
When I say mind, I mean the brain functioning mind. I do not mean Mind (capital M ), which some spiritual disciplines use to mean a more community Mind, or Cosmic Consciousness, if you will.
You seem to be implying that there is some aspect to your experience which does not arise from neural activity. That sounds interesting. How do you access these aspects?
F: You seem to be implying that there is some aspect to your experience, which does not arise from neural activity.
S9: That is exactly what I am saying.
F: That sounds interesting. How do you access these aspects?
S9: It has been described as being like the space between two notes. Although this is true, it actually underlies both notes, as well. (omnipresent) Some call this Awareness with no need of an object. Some call this Isness, etc.
How it is witnessed is in a sense of Presence, which is always here, and never changing.
This is what the Zen Masters are pointing at.
Thoughts/concepts/words, all children of the mind, are the finger pointing.
This is very subtle, and intimate, and must be seen by directly looking. (Some have tried to say this, by saying you must look with your ‘Third Eye,’ or with your ‘Spiritual Sight,’ or even through ‘intuition.’ It comes as an insight. Some claim having what is called a 'glimpse,' which is world changing.
No one can give this to you.
Lin Chi, “Look, Look.”
But, I am perfectly willing to describe it further, if this will help you in any way.
I don't think I use the term very often. If you have a specific usage in mind (haha), please point it out to me, and I'll let you know. It means different things to different people in different contexts, which is why I wanted to be careful to know which meaning you intended in this case.
My teacher claims that what is usually translated as "mind" in English actually means something more like "experience" in Tibetan.
F: You seem to be implying that there is some aspect to your experience, which does not arise from neural activity.
S9: That is exactly what I am saying.
F: That sounds interesting. How do you access these aspects?
S9: It has been described as being like the space between two notes. Although this is true, it actually underlies both notes, as well. (omnipresent) Some call this Awareness with no need of an object. Some call this Isness, etc.
The space between two note is space. The Buddha taught there are six elements, namely, earth, wind, fire, water, space & consciousness.
Awareness always has an object, even if that object is 'the signless' or the object is Nibbana.
"Iness" is the product of thought & becoming. "Iness" cannot be related to primal awareness.
How it is witnessed is in a sense of Presence, which is always here, and never changing.
This is what the Zen Masters are pointing at.
The Buddha advised any state of consciousness or awareness is impermanent; that the arising & passing of consciousness has been discerned.
Thoughts/concepts/words, all children of the mind, are the finger pointing.
Often. However, words are also a description of the clarity of one's experience. If one states, ie, uses words, that awareness is never changing, that is one's experience described using words. That description is clear, unambiguous and of course, subject to disagreement but those who have seen & articulated otherwise.
‘Third Eye,’ or with your ‘Spiritual Sight,’ or even through ‘intuition.’
The Buddha taught there are six sense organs, namely, the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. The Spiritual Eye (Dhamma Chakku) is part of the mind sense organ. It is the wisdom faculty (panna indriya). All six sense organs require some kind of neural activity, just as light requires electricity but is not the electricity.
My teacher claims that what is usually translated as "mind" in English actually means something more like "experience" in Tibetan.
Hi
Tibetans ascribe to eight kinds of consciousness but the two extras are not consciousness but states of defilement.
The Buddha however, who had the eye of stainless insight, used three words for mind, namely, vinnana (consciousness), mano (knowing) and citta (intellect).
The basic primal awareness that functions via the sense organs that enables seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling & cognition is consciousness.
Mano is the mind sense organ, which knows its own thoughts and any other mental objects, including the cessation of defilement. When refined, it is the Spiritual Eye (Dhamma Chakku).
Citta is that aspect of mind that is ignorant or enlightenment and which produces mental objects accordingly.
In terms of the five aggregates, vinnana khanda is consciousness and sankhara khanda is citta.
Mind has many aspects and the English word 'mind' cannot be ascribed to merely one aspect.
He says the word is "citta" in sanskrit, "sem" in Tibetan. This is in reference to this passage, from p 58 of Wake Up To Your Life:
...in Sanskrit and Tibetan, mind does not mean intellect; instead, mind is everything we experience. Mind includes sensations, feelings, and the heart as well as thoughts and the intellect.
F: Q: “Mind does not mean intellect; instead, mind is everything we experience. Mind includes sensations, feelings, and the heart as well as thoughts and the intellect.”
S9: Thank you for asking your Spiritual Teacher. Although, I must admit that I find knowledge gained through the heart to be a little vague.
It leaves me trying to assume what must be meant by this, which isn’t quite as efficient as simply asking you what you/he means by this. : ^ )
F: What aspect of this experience leads you to conclude that it has no neural basis?
S9: When one studies the mind (brain-mind which includes our ego) and gets some idea of its landscape, they are then in a good position to look around for that which is not the mind.
The Hindus use an excellent practice called Neti/Neti (AKA Not this/Not this) for finding out what transcends the mind. One really good litmus test for doing this is to question, “Does it come/Does it go? If it comes and/or goes, then sure as shouting, it is mind. Through this method of elimination, we are allowed to see what is still standing when everything else is eliminated.
F: If it's what Zen points to, it's an accessible experience.
S9: Actually not. They use their words to point at what cannot be either said, or witnessed by the mind. It is ineffable
And:
Obviously, I am saying there is a way of knowing, that is beyond what we usually think of as the only way of knowing.
What we are looking for is something that never changes and is constantly Present to us in an immediate and intimate way.
Thank you for asking your Spiritual Teacher. Although, I must admit that I find knowledge gained through the heart to be a little vague.
It may help if I provide some more context:
Practical Points on Eyes and Intellect
...does meditation involve the intellect? No. Meditation is experiential, not intellectual. Buddhism talks endlessly about mind, but in Sanskrit and Tibetan, mind does not mean intellect; instead, mind is everything we experience. Mind includes sensations, feelings, and the heart as well as thoughts and the intellect.
The use of the word mind has introduced an intellectual and cognitive bias in English, which is neither valid nor helpful in this context. "Put the mind on th breath" does not mean "Think about the breath." Tt means "Experience the breath." or "Feel the breath with your heart."
When one studies the mind (brain-mind which includes our ego) and gets some idea of its landscape, they are then in a good position to look around for that which is not the mind.
What we are looking for is something that never changes and is constantly Present to us in an immediate and intimate way.
Never changes? How does this relate to anicca?
Until I share this experience you're describing, it sounds like we don't have much common ground to start this conversation from.
Oh, also, the point of meditation, from my perspective, is not to gain knowledge. The point is to attend to every aspect of experience. One doesn't attend to the heart because it is a source of knowledge.
F: The point of meditation, from my perspective, is not to gain knowledge. The point is to attend to every aspect of experience.
S9: Is your meditation, what is often called, Mindfulness?
F: One doesn't attend to the heart because it is a source of knowledge.
S9: Why does one attend to the heart?
F: "Put the mind on the breath" does not mean, "Think about the breath." It means, "Experience the breath," or "Feel the breath with your heart."
S9: How does one feel the breath with their heart? I have been meditating on breath for decades now, and I must admit that your words elude me.
F: Never changes? How does this relate to anicca?
S9: Anicca means impermanence. 'Presence' would be permanent.
F: Until I share this experience you're describing, it sounds like we don't have much common ground to start this conversation from.
S9: Actually it is good to examine what you do not yet personally experience, things that have been spoken of by some of our greatest minds, down through the centuries.
Q: Punjaji: (Enlightened disciple of Ramana) Paraphrased
“ Through examining Realization, we are able to run along beside Realization, and when the time is ripe, more easily slip over.”
What brought me to Buddhism was curiosity. I heard about a Theravada temple near my house from a friend of mine who said that he'd visited the temple with Brian and practiced meditation. I'd always been interesting in religion and philosophy, especially those more contemplative in nature, and I was interested in learning more about meditation.
I eventually managed to gather up the courage to visit on my own, and after talking to a couple of monks and participating in an evening chanting and meditation session, I began attending them fairly regularly. After a while, I began to read some of the Buddha's discourses that are preserved in the Pali Canon and I developed an appreciation for their profound simplicity. I've been a fan ever since.
Actually it is good to examine what you do not yet personally experience, things that have been spoken of by some of our greatest minds, down through the centuries.
If you can explain how this experience might be induced, that would be interesting. Otherwise, anything you could say would simply be a series of unverifiable assertions...
How does one feel the breath with their heart? I have been meditating on breath for decades now, and I must admit that your words elude me.
One way (Ken's way) to characterize "meditating on the breath" is "resting in the experience of breathing." But it's all part of that experience, sensations around the heart included.
Anicca means impermanence. 'Presence' would be permanent.
So, you take a part of your experience to be permanent? Does it persist in sleep and other forms of unconsciousness? If so, how does it manifest in those circumstances?
F: If you can explain how this experience might be induced, that would be interesting. Otherwise, anything you could say would simply be a series of unverifiable assertions...
S9: This is of course true of anything you have not personally witnessed yourself. There was a time, was there not, that things told to you about meditational experiences were only hearsay? What was good about this 2ndary knowledge, however was, when you did experience it, it was recognizable.
If this happens often enough, we begin to trust, and withhold final judgment upon what some people tell us.
I can remember being told about some spiritual things, and thinking “Give me a break,” only to witness the very same thing, some time later. I guess that is what our back burner is for. Why don’t you just put what I have said there, for a while?
Lin Chi (Rinzai) tells us to “Look at the fellow who is looking out of our eyes.” This is not done by looking right at it, with your mind, and making it into a mind object in this way, but this is done more like a peripheral vision, if you will.
If this is done right, you will feel like you are looking out of a deep dark hole, but one that is totally Aware.
F: It's the "primary practice" dzogchen.
S9: Every time I see the word Dzogchen lately, the last 6 months at least, I feel very attracted to it. Maybe I should finally motivate myself further. : ^ )
F: The body is the most reliable indicator of troubling experience, which one might otherwise try to push out of awareness.
S9: This is certainly true. But, why the heart, why not the Hara (just below our belly button) (very yogic)?
F: One way (Ken's way) to characterize "meditating on the breath" is "resting in the experience of breathing."
S9: Is this like, “Sitting beside the river,” or “non-interference,” (AKA Wu Wei)?
F: But it's all part of that experience, sensations around the heart included.
S9: This would certainly make you body conscious. Is this where Ken feels the seat of anxiety rests?
F: So, you take a part of your experience to be permanent?
S9: Yes. But it doesn’t need mind to verify it.
Of course every time you think to look, at least at first while you are still not confident of what you have found, there it is. You never look with your mind and find it gone. But after a while it is obvious, all of the time.
F: Does it persist in sleep?
S9: Yes, once you recognize it, you realize it was always in your dreams too.
The mind has a problem verifying deep sleep, but because you know it so well with time, you know it is always ‘Present.’ It is just like when someone walks out the door, you know they don’t just disappear.
In a dream it manifests in exactly the same way as in our waking dream called life. Presence is right there as the ‘I Am,’ or Buddha Nature.
You ask very good questions. I only hope my answers aid you in some small way.
There was a time, was there not, that things told to you about meditationnnnnal experiences were only hearsay? What was good about this 2ndary knowledge, however was, when you did experience it, it was recognizable.
Actually, I had a pretty good story about where the practice would lead. It made sense on a theoretical level, and produced results quickly. Had that not been the case, I probably wouldn't have pursued it.
Lin Chi (Rinzai) tells us to “Look at the fellow who is looking out of our eyes.” This is not done by looking right at it, with your mind, and making it into a mind object in this way, but this is done more like a peripheral vision, if you will.
Can you point me to where Rinzai said that, please? My uninformed expectation is that he only meant for the practitioner to kill said fellow.
Are you the observer, any more than you are your name?
S9: This would certainly make you body conscious. Is this where Ken feels the seat of anxiety rests?
No. The point is that our lives are encrusted with more or less unconscious patterns of behavior and thought which have evolved over the course of our lives. (Karma.) The intent is to release those patterns. They persist partially because they evolved out of a desire for ignorance of some kind of experience, and so ignorance of the avoidant pattern itself develops as the pattern grows more entrenched. But the body never lies, so you start looking there to see the patterns in operation and by the seeing release them.
Concern with where anything rests suggests an attachment to an explanatory model of external phenomena...
The mind has a problem verifying deep sleep, but because you know it so well with time, you know it is always ‘Present.’ It is just like when someone walks out the door, you know they don’t just disappear.
This also suggests a model of external phenomena... In Buddhism, attachment to such a model is the basic "ignorance" in the chain of dependent origination. The best explanation I've seen of this is in Uchiyama Roshi's How To Cook Your Life. I don't have a copy handy to quote from, but the gist is that we think there's an external reality which impinges on our senses, and that then we're reconstructing the world from this sense data. However, that is completely backwards from the way we actually relate to experience: we construct a model of the world from the sense data. (My) Buddhist practice, being entirely concerned with personal experience, has nothing to say about this external world. It does not say it exists, it does not say that it does not. You have had some experiences from which you have imputed an enduring identity... that's great, but it's still (at best) an imputation, an ontological conclusion from what is intended to be a phenomenological practice.
I want to thank you for kindly answering my questions.
However, I believe that our discussion has reached a dead end.
I believe if you look this conversation over, once again, you will agree with my assessment. One or both of us has got to move on in some direction before it is fruitful for us to continue. But, thank you again for your time and effort.
I was raised atheist. In retrospect I was very spiritually hungry.
I was a very emotional child. In my teen years and throughout college I was doing drugs and drinking and smoking.
during college I was visiting a friend at his parent's house in carmel, NY. He said that they had a fabulous monastery and we visited. turns out the monastery has the largest Buddha statue in the western hemisphere, surrounded by 100,000 little Buddha statues & because of cleverly designed architecture and cleverly placed paintings, visitors circumambulate these statues. I saw someone on their knees lighting candles. I had a strong urge to bow down. I felt longing. I picked up one of the free books and we left. I couldnt really access the book, but a year later I met a serious practitioner who worked at my school and I asked him lots of questions. i went to practice with his sangha and dove in.
I got interested in both Zen and Shinto religions when I was in 5th grade. I lived in a small town in Tennessee called Sweetwater, where there was a Japanese boarding school. I went to a summer enrichment program there every year until I was a freshman. After my freshman year, I went to a Saturday morning class, and also summer school.
When I was a sophomore in high school I identified myself as a "Buddhist" however, being in the Bible belt, I had never went to a temple for meditation, just what I learned in books.
My first experience at a Soto Zen temple was Thursday. It was very interesting to hear what I've read and meet others who are Buddhists and to meditate and take part in tea. I felt "at home" if that makes any sense.
Comments
I realized that I had been brainwashed and stopped immediately through away all my books and decided that enough was enough. Then I started drinking extremely heavy and once again became involved with this complete waste of time again. I could go on forever with this story, but I want to keep it relatively short. I then became a staunch atheist with a bad attitude lashing out at my family at every mention of the word religion. Then the event in my life that changed my life and attitude happened. After many years of drinking and drugging I had 2 seizures within 2 months of each other. I was informed by my doctor that I was basically killing myself with substances and anger mixed all together.
So, anyways, I realized that I am sober now and should get an education so I am in the process of getting a degree in Microcomputer Technology and getting (hopefully) on the deans list with 4 A's and 2 B's. I think I am getting a little off of the subject but anyways I will have been sober now for one year in February and will never go back to a life of pain and agony again.
I started studying Buddhism almost by mistake. I was looking for some information on a paper for a class I am taking called Interpersonal Communication and the paper was on a subject called "mindfulness" and I kept getting all of these sites on Buddhism so I decided to inquire within. Well, I found what I was looking for all these years: "PEACE". I have found my niche and I plan on studying as long as I live. I am very new to this but I think I found the right site. I took the time to read some of your posts and I really think this will help my development and studies.
I am finally happy and glad to be welcomed
Jeremy
Fivebells
I note that the book was written in 1979. You surely know that there is a vast body of work written about consciousness and thought processes since then.
Take a look at David Chalmers work, an Australian philosopher of the mind with a background in mathematics who did many of his work in the U.S.
Some people mentioned being raised in a catholic way and obviously they did not find this something that helped them, otherwise they would not choose the buddhist way.
I can totaly relate to these opinions catholicism wired my brain with guilt, fear of going to hell. Altough i am old enough to know beter this kind of conditiong is hard to beat. I think in buddhism there is no concept like guilt there is regret. I think in judaism there is guilt but there is also the idea that this should be something that is limited in time and in magnitude otherwise feelings of guilt become a sin because you begin to hate .........yourself and..... you become unable to love and help others. Such wisdom!!!
Anyway we all are seeking for something out of curiosity or out of unsatisfaction with our live as it is.
Slowmichael
I like Dan Dennet's book Consciousness Explained.
Didn't he simply say it sparked his interest in Buddhism?
Yeah, I've read some of it. <i>The Developing Mind</i> was very good...
Hey, I see he's at ANU (my home town, and where I studied as an undergrad.) I'll be heading back there soon. Perhaps I'll look him up... Thanks for the pointer.
Actually what I'm wondering about is how Hofstadter's Goedel, Escher, Bach. sparked your interest in buddhism when he did not posit a "no-self" view in the book.
I have not read the book but he has pointed out in an interview that many people who read the book did not get his fundamental message: ".... how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter... What is a self, and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle?" That is why he wrote, I am a strange Loop, in 2007 to make himself clear.
Of course, he definitely is not saying he believes in a soul or anything like that. But he seems to be saying that there such a thing as property of "selfness" in a human being. He defined selfness as an aggregate of a person's experineces, his interactions with others and the wide world, the impressions other people have left in his life, etc.
I mentioned Chalmers ( I didn't know that you are australian) because he is a former student of Hofstadter and so expect that Chalmer's ideas would not differ much from him if at all.
Anyway, I like buddhist teachings, honestly do. And I get great insights from gurus which I hope to adopt and apply, especially about meditation.
However I find no convincing reason to believe in the "no-self, empty" theory. It's counter intuitive because if there's one thing I intimately know it's myself.
If that teaching is true then life is just a joke!
I have not read any buddhist work discussing the topic that will convince me otherwise. If anyone can point me to any material, I'll gladly explore it.
The book could be said to be concerned with the basis of meaning. He was looking at koans from this perspective. It was the mystery in the koans which got me interested. From there, I read Alan Watts's The Way of Zen (not a very good choice...) and from there, I found the Buddhism section of the local university library, and ranged around, without really understanding what I was reading.
Based on what I've read of Chalmers, and what I've read of Hofstadter, I would expect that they probably exchanged pretty sharp words over the pap Chalmers is pushing.
That's good! No reason to believe it, because there's nothing in it to believe!
"No-self" and "empty" point to negations of common beliefs. They are not beliefs in themselves. Also, they are phenomenological assertions, not ontological. Rest in the experience of the present moment, hold the question "What is experiencing this?" and look. There will be nothing to look at. That experience of holding the question and seeing nothing is what no-self means.
It would be more appropriate to translate anatta as "not-self." When people hear "no-self" they think it means they don't exist or something. The Buddha taught that everything is conditioned and thus constantly changing and impermanent, and that includes the aggregates which we consider "self," along with external things which we consider "mine." Therefore anything clung to as "I" or "mine" will inevitably change and decay over time, and this leads to the "self" we've created around these things to suffer. This is not a concept to believe in, it's a simple truth to be seen.
You say you "intimately know yourself," and yet that "self" is constantly changing. There is no enduring, unchanging thing fit to be clung to as self, as: "If ___ were the self, this ___ would not lend itself to dis-ease. It would be possible [to say] with regard to ___, 'Let my ___ be thus. Let my ___ not be thus.' "
When a person realizes this and ceases clinging to things as self/I/mine, dukkha will cease.
How does what I described suggest that life is a joke? What do you mean?
Although, they say the Buddha laughed when he awoke to the Truth and attained Nibbana...
So after a lifetime of curiousity, I finally gave in and visited the Buddhist literature section of the book store a few months ago. And that's where it all started
I'm really enjoying everyone's stories! Keep them coming!
If nothing else, you should give credit to Chalmers for having great hair.
Oomundus
Thanks for the reply and to others who replied to my questions elsewhere in the forum. And also for being patient with me. Please excuse me if some of my comments seem offensive. They are said in all honesty.
About that joke thing. That's a reaction based on views I currently hold.
About the no/not self. There's a lot to be said about that but I'm here to listen and try to understand not to give a lecture so I leave it at that.
I'm still reading through the links some of you gave, they're very helpful.
You're all doing very well here, we can learn a thing or two about how to conduct ourselves in forums.
It's christmas time and next month I'm going to India to visit some American and Indian friends, so will give you all a break from me but will pop in from time to time to see if there are posts of interest to me.
Pranaams (my repects to you all)
F: No-self" and "empty" point to negations of common beliefs. They are not beliefs in themselves. Also, they are phenomenological assertions, not ontological. Rest in the experience of the present moment, hold the question "What is experiencing this?" and look. There will be nothing to look at. That experience of holding the question and seeing nothing is what no-self means.
S9: You are seeing emptiness, because you are looking with your mind. Mind is the wrong tool.
Essence, or Being is more like an intuitional insight. In other words, you can feel your own Presence directly, without any need of formulating it with the mind, or even making it into a mind object by looking at it with the mind.
You back into it, and take your seat.
Peace,
S9
When I say mind, I mean the brain functioning mind. I do not mean Mind (capital M ), which some spiritual disciplines use to mean a more community Mind, or Cosmic Consciousness, if you will.
What do you mean, when you say mind, by the way?
Respectfully,
S9
This lecture called Anatta & Rebirth may be useful for you.
The Buddha did not teach 'no-self'. Instead, he taught about the true nature of 'self', that is, what it is, how it arises, how it ceases and, most of all, the effect or result of its arising & ceasing.
Kind regards
DDhatu
The Buddha's liberation was established in dispassion rather than infatuation.
And what has this insight? The mind, per chance? Or do our butts have intuitional insights?
Oh, so you were talking about butts.
You seem to be using "mind" as "intellect." In which case I think you might have misunderstood the post you were responding to.
How are you using "emptiness"?
You seem to be implying that there is some aspect to your experience which does not arise from neural activity. That sounds interesting. How do you access these aspects?
F: You seem to be implying that there is some aspect to your experience, which does not arise from neural activity.
S9: That is exactly what I am saying.
F: That sounds interesting. How do you access these aspects?
S9: It has been described as being like the space between two notes. Although this is true, it actually underlies both notes, as well. (omnipresent) Some call this Awareness with no need of an object. Some call this Isness, etc.
How it is witnessed is in a sense of Presence, which is always here, and never changing.
This is what the Zen Masters are pointing at.
Thoughts/concepts/words, all children of the mind, are the finger pointing.
This is very subtle, and intimate, and must be seen by directly looking. (Some have tried to say this, by saying you must look with your ‘Third Eye,’ or with your ‘Spiritual Sight,’ or even through ‘intuition.’ It comes as an insight. Some claim having what is called a 'glimpse,' which is world changing.
No one can give this to you.
Lin Chi, “Look, Look.”
But, I am perfectly willing to describe it further, if this will help you in any way.
Peace,
S9
If it's what Zen points to, it's an accessible experience.
I answered a couple of your questions, and am looking forward to answering this new question as well.
But, first, (perhaps you missed it) could you answer one of my question?
Quote:
“What do you mean, when you say mind, by the way?”
Thanks,
S9
My teacher claims that what is usually translated as "mind" in English actually means something more like "experience" in Tibetan.
The space between two note is space. The Buddha taught there are six elements, namely, earth, wind, fire, water, space & consciousness.
Awareness always has an object, even if that object is 'the signless' or the object is Nibbana.
"Iness" is the product of thought & becoming. "Iness" cannot be related to primal awareness.
The Buddha advised any state of consciousness or awareness is impermanent; that the arising & passing of consciousness has been discerned. Often. However, words are also a description of the clarity of one's experience. If one states, ie, uses words, that awareness is never changing, that is one's experience described using words. That description is clear, unambiguous and of course, subject to disagreement but those who have seen & articulated otherwise. The Buddha taught there are six sense organs, namely, the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. The Spiritual Eye (Dhamma Chakku) is part of the mind sense organ. It is the wisdom faculty (panna indriya). All six sense organs require some kind of neural activity, just as light requires electricity but is not the electricity.
Kind regards,
Tibetans ascribe to eight kinds of consciousness but the two extras are not consciousness but states of defilement.
The Buddha however, who had the eye of stainless insight, used three words for mind, namely, vinnana (consciousness), mano (knowing) and citta (intellect).
The basic primal awareness that functions via the sense organs that enables seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling & cognition is consciousness.
Mano is the mind sense organ, which knows its own thoughts and any other mental objects, including the cessation of defilement. When refined, it is the Spiritual Eye (Dhamma Chakku).
Citta is that aspect of mind that is ignorant or enlightenment and which produces mental objects accordingly.
In terms of the five aggregates, vinnana khanda is consciousness and sankhara khanda is citta.
Mind has many aspects and the English word 'mind' cannot be ascribed to merely one aspect.
Kind regards
F: My teacher claims that what is usually translated as "mind" in English actually means something more like "experience" in Tibetan.
S9: What word are you talking about?
S9
F: Q: “Mind does not mean intellect; instead, mind is everything we experience. Mind includes sensations, feelings, and the heart as well as thoughts and the intellect.”
S9: Thank you for asking your Spiritual Teacher. Although, I must admit that I find knowledge gained through the heart to be a little vague.
It leaves me trying to assume what must be meant by this, which isn’t quite as efficient as simply asking you what you/he means by this. : ^ )
F: What aspect of this experience leads you to conclude that it has no neural basis?
S9: When one studies the mind (brain-mind which includes our ego) and gets some idea of its landscape, they are then in a good position to look around for that which is not the mind.
The Hindus use an excellent practice called Neti/Neti (AKA Not this/Not this) for finding out what transcends the mind. One really good litmus test for doing this is to question, “Does it come/Does it go? If it comes and/or goes, then sure as shouting, it is mind. Through this method of elimination, we are allowed to see what is still standing when everything else is eliminated.
F: If it's what Zen points to, it's an accessible experience.
S9: Actually not. They use their words to point at what cannot be either said, or witnessed by the mind. It is ineffable
And:
Obviously, I am saying there is a way of knowing, that is beyond what we usually think of as the only way of knowing.
What we are looking for is something that never changes and is constantly Present to us in an immediate and intimate way.
Quote: “It is closer to you than your jugular. “
Sincerely,
S9
It may help if I provide some more context:
Never changes? How does this relate to anicca?
Until I share this experience you're describing, it sounds like we don't have much common ground to start this conversation from.
F: The point of meditation, from my perspective, is not to gain knowledge. The point is to attend to every aspect of experience.
S9: Is your meditation, what is often called, Mindfulness?
F: One doesn't attend to the heart because it is a source of knowledge.
S9: Why does one attend to the heart?
F: "Put the mind on the breath" does not mean, "Think about the breath." It means, "Experience the breath," or "Feel the breath with your heart."
S9: How does one feel the breath with their heart? I have been meditating on breath for decades now, and I must admit that your words elude me.
F: Never changes? How does this relate to anicca?
S9: Anicca means impermanence. 'Presence' would be permanent.
F: Until I share this experience you're describing, it sounds like we don't have much common ground to start this conversation from.
S9: Actually it is good to examine what you do not yet personally experience, things that have been spoken of by some of our greatest minds, down through the centuries.
Q: Punjaji: (Enlightened disciple of Ramana) Paraphrased
“ Through examining Realization, we are able to run along beside Realization, and when the time is ripe, more easily slip over.”
Warm Regards,
S9
I eventually managed to gather up the courage to visit on my own, and after talking to a couple of monks and participating in an evening chanting and meditation session, I began attending them fairly regularly. After a while, I began to read some of the Buddha's discourses that are preserved in the Pali Canon and I developed an appreciation for their profound simplicity. I've been a fan ever since.
If you can explain how this experience might be induced, that would be interesting. Otherwise, anything you could say would simply be a series of unverifiable assertions...
It's the "primary practice" dzogchen.
The body is the most reliable indicator of troubling experience which one might otherwise try to push out of awareness.
One way (Ken's way) to characterize "meditating on the breath" is "resting in the experience of breathing." But it's all part of that experience, sensations around the heart included.
So, you take a part of your experience to be permanent? Does it persist in sleep and other forms of unconsciousness? If so, how does it manifest in those circumstances?
F: If you can explain how this experience might be induced, that would be interesting. Otherwise, anything you could say would simply be a series of unverifiable assertions...
S9: This is of course true of anything you have not personally witnessed yourself. There was a time, was there not, that things told to you about meditational experiences were only hearsay? What was good about this 2ndary knowledge, however was, when you did experience it, it was recognizable.
If this happens often enough, we begin to trust, and withhold final judgment upon what some people tell us.
I can remember being told about some spiritual things, and thinking “Give me a break,” only to witness the very same thing, some time later. I guess that is what our back burner is for. Why don’t you just put what I have said there, for a while?
Lin Chi (Rinzai) tells us to “Look at the fellow who is looking out of our eyes.” This is not done by looking right at it, with your mind, and making it into a mind object in this way, but this is done more like a peripheral vision, if you will.
If this is done right, you will feel like you are looking out of a deep dark hole, but one that is totally Aware.
F: It's the "primary practice" dzogchen.
S9: Every time I see the word Dzogchen lately, the last 6 months at least, I feel very attracted to it. Maybe I should finally motivate myself further. : ^ )
F: The body is the most reliable indicator of troubling experience, which one might otherwise try to push out of awareness.
S9: This is certainly true. But, why the heart, why not the Hara (just below our belly button) (very yogic)?
F: One way (Ken's way) to characterize "meditating on the breath" is "resting in the experience of breathing."
S9: Is this like, “Sitting beside the river,” or “non-interference,” (AKA Wu Wei)?
F: But it's all part of that experience, sensations around the heart included.
S9: This would certainly make you body conscious. Is this where Ken feels the seat of anxiety rests?
F: So, you take a part of your experience to be permanent?
S9: Yes. But it doesn’t need mind to verify it.
Of course every time you think to look, at least at first while you are still not confident of what you have found, there it is. You never look with your mind and find it gone. But after a while it is obvious, all of the time.
F: Does it persist in sleep?
S9: Yes, once you recognize it, you realize it was always in your dreams too.
The mind has a problem verifying deep sleep, but because you know it so well with time, you know it is always ‘Present.’ It is just like when someone walks out the door, you know they don’t just disappear.
In a dream it manifests in exactly the same way as in our waking dream called life. Presence is right there as the ‘I Am,’ or Buddha Nature.
You ask very good questions. I only hope my answers aid you in some small way.
Respectfully,
S9
Actually, I had a pretty good story about where the practice would lead. It made sense on a theoretical level, and produced results quickly. Had that not been the case, I probably wouldn't have pursued it.
Yeah, but you're not there, yet, sorry.
Can you point me to where Rinzai said that, please? My uninformed expectation is that he only meant for the practitioner to kill said fellow.
Are you the observer, any more than you are your name?
What about the experience produces the feeling of looking out of a deep dark hole?
One includes those, too. The whole lot.
I don't know for sure, as I'm not very familiar with those terms. They invoke compatible images for me, for what that's worth.
No. The point is that our lives are encrusted with more or less unconscious patterns of behavior and thought which have evolved over the course of our lives. (Karma.) The intent is to release those patterns. They persist partially because they evolved out of a desire for ignorance of some kind of experience, and so ignorance of the avoidant pattern itself develops as the pattern grows more entrenched. But the body never lies, so you start looking there to see the patterns in operation and by the seeing release them.
Concern with where anything rests suggests an attachment to an explanatory model of external phenomena...
This also suggests a model of external phenomena... In Buddhism, attachment to such a model is the basic "ignorance" in the chain of dependent origination. The best explanation I've seen of this is in Uchiyama Roshi's How To Cook Your Life. I don't have a copy handy to quote from, but the gist is that we think there's an external reality which impinges on our senses, and that then we're reconstructing the world from this sense data. However, that is completely backwards from the way we actually relate to experience: we construct a model of the world from the sense data. (My) Buddhist practice, being entirely concerned with personal experience, has nothing to say about this external world. It does not say it exists, it does not say that it does not. You have had some experiences from which you have imputed an enduring identity... that's great, but it's still (at best) an imputation, an ontological conclusion from what is intended to be a phenomenological practice.
I want to thank you for kindly answering my questions.
However, I believe that our discussion has reached a dead end.
I believe if you look this conversation over, once again, you will agree with my assessment. One or both of us has got to move on in some direction before it is fruitful for us to continue. But, thank you again for your time and effort.
Later,
S9
I was a very emotional child. In my teen years and throughout college I was doing drugs and drinking and smoking.
during college I was visiting a friend at his parent's house in carmel, NY. He said that they had a fabulous monastery and we visited. turns out the monastery has the largest Buddha statue in the western hemisphere, surrounded by 100,000 little Buddha statues & because of cleverly designed architecture and cleverly placed paintings, visitors circumambulate these statues. I saw someone on their knees lighting candles. I had a strong urge to bow down. I felt longing. I picked up one of the free books and we left. I couldnt really access the book, but a year later I met a serious practitioner who worked at my school and I asked him lots of questions. i went to practice with his sangha and dove in.
When I was a sophomore in high school I identified myself as a "Buddhist" however, being in the Bible belt, I had never went to a temple for meditation, just what I learned in books.
My first experience at a Soto Zen temple was Thursday. It was very interesting to hear what I've read and meet others who are Buddhists and to meditate and take part in tea. I felt "at home" if that makes any sense.