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R: This is beyond the pale S9. Plenty of people, tons of people, get the Buddha just fine, without controversy. What you are saying is that you get him, and all those Buddhists who have taken refuge don't. I see no way of addressing your idee fixe.
S9: No, what I am saying is…That…until we ALL are 100% Realized as the Buddha was, that we are not completely getting the Buddha and what He said, and until that day comes we should certainly question, and re-question, everything we think we believe that we already know. There is a very good chance that we are missing something in His message.
Nothing obstructs like complacency, and complacency is a child of thinking that we already know.
Re: S9: A question: Who says this ongoing process, is not me? Can the process say,"This process is not me?" Isn’t that a contradiction?
I think you're touching on the root here of why it is intrinsically flawed to equate "not-self" to "not-me".
AM: I caught some heat for offering that not-self is more equal to "without an independent structure", but as I practice, it remains the most consistent and logical interpretation of the word anatta.
S9: Interesting phrasing, "without an independent structure".
I also read somewhere, at Wiki I think, that anatta could mean “without perfection.”
However the atta, (or atman) was always considered to be without, or beyond form. So are you actually indicating that there is nothing outside of the mind and her structures, aka no-thing but thoughts? I don’t believe Buddha was into nihilism. I further believe when Buddha spoke of emptiness that he was referring to something (for want of a better word) transcendent of thought.
Don’t be attached to the impermanent makes no sense to me if there is nothing outside of the mind. The mind is not simply attached to the impermanent. The mind is the impermanent personified. Even the concept OF impermanence is a mind object.
AM: Some of your posts do seem to describe a grasping... like you want an eternal self to exist, or expect it to exist somehow.
S9: If this Eternal Self were other than my very “Being” or my “Buddha Nature,” than certainly I might have to grasp it, or cling to it in order to own it. But, if Buddha Nature were my very intrinsic “Being,” than why on earth would I have to grasp it? You cannot lose, or gain for that matter, what you already are.
I’m curious to see your reply as I enjoy your contributions.
what I am saying is…That…until we ALL are 100% Realized as the Buddha was, that we are not completely getting the Buddha and what He said, and until that day comes we should certainly question, and re-question, everything we think we believe that we already know. There is a very good chance that we are missing something in His message.
There are folks who are realized like the Buddha IMO and I have had the good fortune to sit in their company. The virtues they demonstrate through their speech and conduct are genuinely humbling and really give a charge of aspiration. But even that is not neccesary to understand the Buddha's teaching on Anatta. An understanding of Anatta as defined by other people on this thread is the beginning of serious practice according to every teacher I have known, as well as their students. So I dont know what to say S9.
Also, Ive never practiced for any length of time in a Vajrayana Sangha, but as a kid my big sister took me to a talk by her teacher Tomo Geshe Rinpoche. I didn't understand much from the old man, and can't even remember whether it was him speaking or someone else translating. But two things stood out, A story about the Buddha stopping an mad elephant with lights from his fingers, and that all things are empty of inherent self, which rang a bell. Maybe some Vajrayana person can speak to that.
AM: I caught some heat for offering that not-self is more equal to "without an independent structure", but as I practice, it remains the most consistent and logical interpretation of the word anatta.
S9: So are you actually indicating that there is nothing outside of the mind and her structures, aka no-thing but thoughts?
No, not at all. I'm saying that the mind has no independent, inherent structures. There is no character, no static substance... they are dependent on other forces, such as karmic volition and the senses. When saying "this is anatta" I see that the renunciation of self is not counterpoint to "me". It is not saying "What is being experienced does not belong to me". It is saying "This ongoing experience has no static, independent quality."
Because the step after assuming there are static objects in the world or mind might be to tie a knot of perceived static qualities into a self, sometimes the anatta repetition might be aiming at the second arrow, the "self" rather than the forces that comprise the "self" which would be that bundle. It just seems to me to be more direct to let it cut the root of the fixation, rather than attempt to still the grasping of ownership toward the false objects.
I don't find this to be nihilism at all. Its not as though perceptions become ignorant of conventional meaning, but there is a direct noticing of the difference between conventional archetypes and inherent existence. We can solidify the observation into moments of meaning, but it does not force itself into us. It lets the relationship between "me, you and it" to be based on a common harmony between the three, rather than a single fixated relationship between two of those, forcing its way into the third. Does that make sense?
You can apply that "me, you, it" to any trinity archetype... "mind, body, self" "teacher, student, lesson" "art, artist, audience" etc. Its not to deny the presence of one of the three, but in recognizing that not one of the three has a fixed status, the solid nature of the tripod collapses into a state without clinging.
S9: If this Eternal Self were other than my very “Being” or my “Buddha Nature,” than certainly I might have to grasp it, or cling to it in order to own it. But, if Buddha Nature were my very intrinsic “Being,” than why on earth would I have to grasp it? You cannot lose, or gain for that matter, what you already are.
I'm not quite sure what these words are pointing toward. What I mean is that some of your ideas seem to express "being" and "Buddha nature" and "eternal awareness" to be the same thing. I don't think this is the case. We have the potential to be awake, but that does not mean we are. You could even say our natural state is Buddha nature, but that does not mean we are manifesting from our natural state.
Buddha was without suffering, internal urge/clinging or whathaveyou. "Being a Buddha" is different than simply being what is... its more specific than that. I am here and now, with clinging to attachments, which means I am not Buddha. I have the seed, but not the fruit. Calling the seed a fruit does not make it grow, nor is it accurate. I'm not trying to needle semantics, but distinguish between "what is now" and "what is natural" and so forth. Its different.
Here's my two cents. The view that there is no self and the view that there is a self are both forms of self-view. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on you how you look at it), the Buddha refused to directly answer whether or not there is a self, stating that he didn't see "any such supporting (argument) for views [of self] from the reliance on which there would not arise sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair" (MN 22). Instead, he focuses on events in and of themselves, as they are experienced, bypassing the question of self altogether. The Buddha said, "Who suffers," isn't a valid question, and suggests the alternative, "From what as a requisite condition comes suffering" (SN 12.35). Hence, my understanding is that the teachings on not-self are ultimately pragmatic, soteriological methods rather than strictly ontological statements.
Self (atta), in the philosophical sense as opposed to it's conventional usage, is defined as that which is "permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change" (SN 24.3). Our sense of self, the ephemeral "I," on the other hand, is merely a mental imputation, the product of what the Buddha called a process of "I-making and my-making."
In the simplest of terms, the Buddha taught that whatever is inconstant is stressful, and whatever is stressful is not-self—with the goal being to essentially take this [analytical] knowledge, along with a specific set of practices such as meditation, as a stepping stone to what I can only describe as a profound psychological event that radically changes the way the mind relates to experience. That doesn't mean, however, that the teachings on not-self are understood to deny individuality (MN 22) or imply that the conventional person doesn't exist (SN 22.22). The way I understand it, they merely break down the conceptual idea of a self — i.e., that which is satisfactory, permanent and completely subject to our control — in relation to the various aspects of our experience that we falsely cling to as "me" or '"mine'" (SN 22.59).
So in essence, the Buddhist teachings on not-self aren't merely assertions that we have no self; they are a method for deconstructing our false perceptions about reality, as well as an important tool in removing the vast net of clinging that gives rise to suffering.
This may be a bit of nonsense, but in one of the ways I like to look at it, the conventional viewpoint (sammuti sacca) explains things through subject, verb and object whereas the ultimate viewpoint (paramattha sacca) explains things through verb alone. In essence, things are being viewed from the perspective of activities and processes. This, I think, is incredibly difficult to see, but perhaps what happens here is that once self-identity view (sakkaya-ditthi) is removed, the duality of subject and object is also removed, thereby revealing the level of mere conditional phenomena, i.e., dependent co-arising in action. This mental process is "seen," ignorance is replaced by knowledge and vision of things as they are (yatha-bhuta-nana-dassana), and nibbana, then, would be the "letting go" of what isn't self through the dispassion (viraga) invoked in seeing the inconstant (anicca) and stressful (dukkha) nature of clinging to false refuges that are neither fixed nor stable (anatta).
Question: I wonder if you have noticed that it is easy at some point to disregard thoughts and come to see a blank screen.
"Pure Mind", "emptiness". It is the perception of an absence (timeless, peace, non-obstucted, edgless etc.) that is dependent on the perception of the presence and fullness of All . These two perceptions are one.
At that point you may identify with this blank screen, which is very restful, or even call it the “Not self.” Yet at the same time, when you get up off the cushion and go about life in the fast lane the blank screen is gone…Poof.
Identification with the "blank screen" is an error. It is Emptiness (in that respect), identification as Emptiness makes self. Emptiness is not self, Form is not self.
To be, because of this personal experience, it always seemed that the blank screen was just one more mind object. How, my friend does the mind’s inability to transcend this blank screen, many call nothingness or empty, prove there is nothing beyond the mind?
The blank screen and the objects are transcended with the cessation of identification with both. They remain in the form of an expedient, as two sides of one action, gesture, occasion. No more no less.
None of which touches a Nice Healthy Conventional self. You may still prefer chocolate icecream, I may still prefer Vanilla.
S9 Ive revisited this post and re-edited it to try and convey in the best way I can. I'm not sure what else there is to say. Only that "greed, hatred and delusion" have not been uprooted in this practitioner, so practice goes on.
A question: Who says this ongoing process, is not me? Can the process say,"This process is not me?" Isn’t that a contradiction?
I would have to say that there is no contradiction, or rather that the contradiction only arises from the way you phrased the question. To ask "who says this ongoing process is not me?" or to ask "who does the identifying?", "who does the not identifying?" implies an I, which is erroneous. The question is simply ill-phrased. Consider Descartes famous "cogito ergo sum". Is that a valid conclusion? In Latin, the pronoun is implicit in the verb "sum", however the English translation "I think therefore I am" the pronoun is extracted and objectified and therein precisely lies the illusion. All that Descartes can really say for sure is that because there is thinking there is being, or because there is mental experience, there is experience. The statement is thus just a tautology, because no thinker can be derived from the process of thinking.
AM: I'm saying that the mind has no independent, inherent structures. There is no character, no static substance... they are dependent on other forces, such as karmic volition and the senses. When saying "this is anatta" I see that the renunciation of self is not counterpoint to "me". It is not saying "What is being experienced does not belong to me". It is saying "This ongoing experience has no static, independent quality."
S9: Let’s see if I am grasping your meaning here. You are saying that the mind is ONLY a process, correct? You are also saying that this process needs nothing to sustain it in its perpetual motion? Can you point out for me please, if I am in fact understanding you correctly, what is different in this paradigm from my depicting the finite world (aka mind process), as a dream ONLY?
There is nothing substantial nor static in a dream. It is simply a going-on-ness. This is no actual self within a dream, as both the character and the doing are but one process united within a story line of imagination. This indeed is the co-dependent arising spoken of. How could there be anything independent within such as this? I am thinking we may be in agreement as for as this explanation goes.
However where I believe we part ways is that I acknowledge, no have actually witnessed the real possibility of transcendence, or liberation from this dream…what some call Nirvana. Nirvana isn’t a place nor is it a mind object. It is not dualistic in any way. So one cannot say that Nirvana is either a process, nor is it static in the way mind might believe. It is alive without definition, aka omnipotent.
Mind is only capable of understanding what Nirvana is not, and so the Buddha put us on task, to see through and to drop everything that we possibly could. The vast emptiness of all thing-ness is Nirvana, and yet at the same time Nirvana is a vast capacity beyond the mind’s comprehension. It is not an individual self, like a soul personified, yet at the same time it is the Being, the Ever-Present Here and Now in this Immediate Moment of every imagined possibility.
AM: Because the step after assuming there are static objects in the world or mind might be to tie a knot of perceived static qualities into a self, sometimes the anatta repetition might be aiming at the second arrow, the "self" rather than the forces that comprise the "self" which would be that bundle. It just seems to me to be more direct to let it cut the root of the fixation, rather than attempt to still the grasping of ownership toward the false objects.
S9: I couldn’t agree more with you, if I understand you correctly. The quickest way to quit this prison of the mind is to dis-identify with the ego-self, at least as it is understood by the mind, to be “who we are.” We are certainly entangled in the details only after taking ownership of this ego-self, aka dream self.
AM: I don't find this to be nihilism at all. Its not as though perceptions become ignorant of conventional meaning, but there is a direct noticing of the difference between conventional archetypes and inherent existence.
S9: When you say “inherent existence,” what exactly do you mean?
AM: We can solidify the observation into moments of meaning, but it does not force itself into us.
S9: Are you saying, “In the dream but not of the dream,” aka participating in the dream like play?
(Or what others have coined, “Awake in the dream.”)
AM: It lets the relationship between "me, you and it" to be based on a common harmony between the three, rather than a single fixated relationship between two of those, forcing its way into the third. Does that make sense?
S9: Actually no, sorry for my slow wit. ; ^ ) Could you either elucidate further or state this slightly differently? Thanks. : ^ )
AM: You can apply that "me, you, it" to any trinity archetype... "mind, body, self" "teacher, student, lesson" "art, artist, audience" etc. Its not to deny the presence of one of the three, but in recognizing that not one of the three has a fixed status, the solid nature of the tripod collapses into a state without clinging.
S9: Oops, this too has me flummoxed. Flesh it out could you, please. : ^ )
Re: S9: If this Eternal Self were other than my very “Being” or my “Buddha Nature,” than certainly I might have to grasp it, or cling to it in order to own it. But, if Buddha Nature were my very intrinsic “Being,” than why on earth would I have to grasp it? You cannot lose, or gain for that matter, what you already are.
AM: I'm not quite sure what these words are pointing toward. What I mean is that some of your ideas seem to express "being" and "Buddha nature" and "eternal awareness" to be the same thing. I don't think this is the case.
S9: Why not? How do you see this as being wrong?
AM: We have the potential to be awake, but that does not mean we are. You could even say our natural state is Buddha nature, but that does not mean we are manifesting from our natural state.
S9: What exactly are we than, a big nothing? Are you saying that finitude is a big computer game with absolutely nothing to support it? We are born, we suffer, and we die, end of story?
AM: Buddha was without suffering, internal urge/clinging or whathaveyou. "Being a Buddha" is different than simply being what is... its more specific than that. I am here and now, with clinging to attachments, which means I am not Buddha. I have the seed, but not the fruit.
S9: Okay, but what is this fruit, just more emptiness?
AM: Calling the seed a fruit does not make it grow, nor is it accurate.
S9: If a fruit only is gained in time, it is of the nature of impermanence. So what good is this fruit over the seed? Only when the seed and the fruit are One is there a wholeness, a healing of the separation of dualism..
AM: I'm not trying to needle semantics, but distinguish between "what is now" and "what is natural" and so forth. Its different.
S9: Different in what way. I sometimes have trouble following you. My bad! ; ^ )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Consciousnesses
Our "being" is created by our own Store consciousness according to the karma seeds stored in it , and in that sense , in "coming and going" we definitely do not own the " no-coming and no-going" Store consciousness, rather we are owned by it. Just as a human image shown in a monitor can never be described as lasting for any instant, since "he" is just the production of electron currents of data stored and flow from the hard disk of the computer, so do seed currents drain from the Store consciousness, never lasting from one moment to the next. ) , and through the process of seeds purging, the dharma practitioner can became a Arahat when the four defilement Mental Function(心所法)－－ self-delusion (我癡), self-view (我見), egotism (我慢), and self-love (我愛), of the seventh consciousness are purified.
TS: I would have to say that there is no contradiction, or rather that the contradiction only arises from the way you phrased the question. To ask "who says this ongoing process is not me?" or to ask "who does the identifying?", "who does the not identifying?" implies an I, which is erroneous.
S9: Yes, we must be somewhat forgiving of language, which is dualistic in structure. However, it is our personal paradigm that traps us into thinking that the ‘I’ of necessity must be this personified ego-self.
The dualistic structure of language "leads us by the nose" into thinking that our only choice outside of actually being the ego-self is its opposite; the not-being of the ego-self. I am simply saying what if we could step outside of both of these choices by dis-identifying with the paradigm of duality all together? If we might in fact Liberate ourselves from the prison of duality, and too narrow choices?
Is it possible? Many Great Mystics down through the centuries have claimed to have Realized this very Being, intimately, or what I call our “Original Self” before we fell into the dream of duality. It is my contention that this is exactly WHAT the Buddha spoke of when He simply said, “I am Awake.”
TS: Consider Descartes famous "cogito ergo sum". Is that a valid conclusion?
S9: I have often thought that Descartes phrasing stopped short of the truth of what he actually found. If it had been me, I would have rather said, "There is definitely thinking taking place, therefore there must be Being."
If someone not only finds thought, but also watches thought natural way for even a short time, they would certainly notice it coming up and melting away rapidly. So why stop there? : ^ (
I would certainly want to know what either supports or what generates thought, albeit thought is a temporary manifestation, ("All smoke and mirrors."). The very next questions, if you were curious at all and not easily satisfied with partial answers, would certainly be thought...“from what”…”to where”… and “why thoughts at all?”
TS: All that Descartes can really say for sure is that because there is thinking there is being, or because there is mental experience, there is experience. The statement is thus just a tautology, because no thinker can be derived from the process of thinking.
S9: It is not a legitimate tautology, unless thinking is the same exact thing as Being, and I would put forth that it is not. For instance. plants have Being, (do they not?) but are plants actually thinking as we define thinking?
TS: The statement is thus just a tautology, because no thinker can be derived from the process of thinking.
S9: There lies the problem (chick-egg) is Being derived from thought, or is thought simply a by-product of Being, a little like the flaming tail on a comet. Some have said that the Immediate Moment (Here and Now) is the only Real Life, and that thought on the other hand is always the past or memory of what went before, thought being like a river (thoughtstream) flowing out of the source (Being).
AMatt,
AM: I'm saying that the mind has no independent, inherent structures. There is no character, no static substance... they are dependent on other forces, such as karmic volition and the senses. When saying "this is anatta" I see that the renunciation of self is not counterpoint to "me". It is not saying "What is being experienced does not belong to me". It is saying "This ongoing experience has no static, independent quality."
S9: Let’s see if I am grasping your meaning here. You are saying that the mind is ONLY a process, correct? You are also saying that this process needs nothing to sustain it in its perpetual motion? Can you point out for me please, if I am in fact understanding you correctly, what is different in this paradigm from my depicting the finite world (aka mind process), as a dream ONLY?
What I am saying is that the mind is a fluid culmination of forces in the moment such as karmic imprints, sense organs, brain chemistry etc. The mind has no solid, unchanging attribute. Anatta is a depiction of this, rather than just a renunciation of ego. Whether we are sleeping or awake this is the case.
The reason "dream" seems slippery in reference to this is because we are moving through space that is not just a "dream"... rather there is a dreaming mind that is moving through space, and because it is dreaming, projects meaning onto everything.
However where I believe we part ways is that I acknowledge, no have actually witnessed the real possibility of transcendence, or liberation from this dream…what some call Nirvana. Nirvana isn’t a place nor is it a mind object. It is not dualistic in any way. So one cannot say that Nirvana is either a process, nor is it static in the way mind might believe. It is alive without definition, aka omnipotent.
Mind is only capable of understanding what Nirvana is not, and so the Buddha put us on task, to see through and to drop everything that we possibly could. The vast emptiness of all thing-ness is Nirvana, and yet at the same time Nirvana is a vast capacity beyond the mind’s comprehension. It is not an individual self, like a soul personified, yet at the same time it is the Being, the Ever-Present Here and Now in this Immediate Moment of every imagined possibility.
What you're calling Nirvana I see as a perception that penetrates subjective reality and sees ultimate reality. If dukkha is what collapses the perception into subjective clinging, then perhaps Nirvana is a lasting state you describe. I don't think about it much. I definitely don't consider it some kind of ecstasy finish line where you break the tape and there's a parade and stuff. It sounds like you glorify it.
S9: I couldn’t agree more with you, if I understand you correctly. The quickest way to quit this prison of the mind is to dis-identify with the ego-self, at least as it is understood by the mind, to be “who we are.” We are certainly entangled in the details only after taking ownership of this ego-self, aka dream self.
Actually, I'm saying the opposite. I find that it is faster to look at how the component forces are empty of any fixed meaning... which dissolves the self directly and naturally without having to dis-identify. Its more like not trying to make solid that which is naturally empty.
AM: I don't find this to be nihilism at all. Its not as though perceptions become ignorant of conventional meaning, but there is a direct noticing of the difference between conventional archetypes and inherent existence.
AM: We can solidify the observation into moments of meaning, but it does not force itself into us.
S9: When you say “inherent existence,” what exactly do you mean?
S9: Are you saying, “In the dream but not of the dream,” aka participating in the dream like play?
By conventional archetypes, I am saying the meanings we project onto forms. Ie, chair, bed, anger, life, God, tea kettle, etc. When I say inherent existence I am talking about how all of the archetypes we label do not radiate that label.
A tree might exist without us labeling it, but it has no qualities that are not a direct aggregate of what we are applying. It would not self-reference, it does not refer to itself as a tree. It is empty of meaning. It does not have an inherent set of qualities that exist across all subjective realities. One might call it a tree, one might see an elm, one might see lumber, one might see all the leaves that have to be raked, one might see a baum, one an arbre... etc. Those are all labels of conventional reality, or conventional archetypes. They are of the mind, not of the tree.
AM: It lets the relationship between "me, you and it" to be based on a common harmony between the three, rather than a single fixated relationship between two of those, forcing its way into the third. Does that make sense?
S9: Actually no, sorry for my slow wit. ; ^ ) Could you either elucidate further or state this slightly differently? Thanks. : ^ )
Relating to the example above of the tree, as we recognize the natural radiance of the tree (before collapsing it into those conventions) we can relate to it in the way the other person relates to it. If I insist that it is lumber while you insist that it is a leaf factory, then we are dissonant with each other. The "Matt, s9, tree" moment of relating can be more direct and more fluid if two of the three do not insist that the conventions come from the tree.
For instance, if you insist that it is a tree, and I see it as empty, the tree does not insist itself, so the three of us can sit and work with how s9 relates to the tree without the dissonance that comes from multiple forces of insistence. I wouldn't just try to automatically convince you that it isn't a tree, rather I would try to help you work with the tree more skillfully. In giving your interpretations lots of room in my mind, the trinity we create in the moment is more luminous.
This is in contrast to nihilism, where you forcibly deny (or apathetically deny) that the tree has any meaning at all.
AM: We have the potential to be awake, but that does not mean we are. You could even say our natural state is Buddha nature, but that does not mean we are manifesting from our natural state.
S9: What exactly are we than, a big nothing? Are you saying that finitude is a big computer game with absolutely nothing to support it? We are born, we suffer, and we die, end of story?
Its not "nothing", but perhaps "no-thing". These questions seem to imply a grasping for an eternal s9. This is what I was referring to if I am reading it accurately.
AM: Buddha was without suffering, internal urge/clinging or whathaveyou. "Being a Buddha" is different than simply being what is... its more specific than that. I am here and now, with clinging to attachments, which means I am not Buddha. I have the seed, but not the fruit.
S9: Okay, but what is this fruit, just more emptiness?
Well, yes. Emptiness in the sense that the perceptions are wide awake and recognize that the forms of self and environment are empty of any fixed meaning. Ie... seeing a forest as it is, not as a group of trees. Seeing people as they are, not just a bunch of students, friends, potential buddhas, but giving them space in your mind to let them be them without projecting any convention onto them.
AM: Calling the seed a fruit does not make it grow, nor is it accurate.
S9: If a fruit only is gained in time, it is of the nature of impermanence. So what good is this fruit over the seed? Only when the seed and the fruit are One is there a wholeness, a healing of the separation of dualism..
A fruit is more nourishing to those who eat it. What does it matter to the fruit? Well, as far as sense perceptions, not much. There may be ecstasy or pain, but what matters is that we are awake to the reality in front of us, because others cling and suffer without awareness of how to extract themselves.
AM: I'm not trying to needle semantics, but distinguish between "what is now" and "what is natural" and so forth. Its different.
S9: Different in what way.
If you see a car that is covered in mud, would you say that it is displaying its Buddha nature? That the car is in its natural state? You could, but wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the car is in its natural state with mud on top of it? I think much of the same with people. You can say they are in their natural buddha state always, but it might be more accurate to say that they have buddha nature always, but the mud is on top also. In this case, forces such as clinging, confusion... dukkha is obscuring.
It might be inspiring to say "you are buddha", but it might be more helpful to say "underneath your grasping is a buddha waiting to be reborn"
Here is my question to you. Clinging to views is a trap of the mind, and makes everything that can be possibly thought into a mind object. So couldn’t the Buddha be saying that Buddha Nature is not a view or a thought, which lives within the mind? Couldn’t he be pointing in this way beyond the mind, or what mind is capable of understanding.
So often when anyone uses the word Self, the first thing done by mind is to try and make Self a solid object or story line much like SUPER Ego might like it to be. But is “Being” an object of any kind?
So, YES, Buddha spoke to the more practical side of this equation. Basically he pointed at what the mind can know, that being exactly what we are not. Why? Because the mind can see mind and thinking we were a "mind object" was the biggest problem or obstruction in his time. Seekers were becoming “mind bound,” either in their own perfected actions as a definition of moral and a good self, or in magical inner trance states, like bliss, gained in meditation.
Our "being" is created by our own Store consciousness according to the karma seeds stored in it.
S9: Okay but, if that storage is a storage of empty things/thoughts/mind objects, what exactly is it storing anyway…emptiness? ; ^ )
Lets us remember that what we call memory traces is nothing more than a thought in the immediate now. So, perhaps if we had Alzhiemer's there wouldn't be any karma.
; ^ )
Or even how does an accumulation of karmic ingredients jive with impermanence?
Very often these notions do not seem consistent to me, or is it with each other?
: ^ (
In that sense, in "coming and going" we definitely do not own the " no-coming and no-going" Store consciousness, rather we are owned by it.
S9: There is some lingering on in your impermanence. Is there not? So in your paradigm, we (aka ego-self) are impermanent, but karma is not? Or “Karma is KING.”
; ^ )
Just as a human image shown in a monitor can never be described as lasting for any instant, since "he" is just the production of electron currents of data stored and flow from the hard disk of the computer, so do seed currents drain from the Store consciousness, never lasting from one moment to the next, and through the process of seeds purging, the dharma practitioner can became a Arahat.
S9: What good is an empty Arahat? Is he not just another spark, lasting but a second…Why all of the ado about accomplishments?
When the four defilement Mental Function(心所法)－－ self-delusion (我癡), self-view (我見), egotism (我慢), and self-love (我愛), of the seventh consciousness are purified.
S9: Again, what good is a purity that is but a instantaneous spark in the wind?
I am not trying to be a “wise guy” here. : ^ (
I'm really a sweety pie.. ; ^ )
It just seems that we are jumping about with the impermanence somehow lasting as karma, and somehow being important, signified by handing out titles like Arahat. Perhaps you could clear up my confusion over this? Or NOT. : ^ )
AM: What I am saying is that the mind is a fluid culmination of forces in the moment such as karmic imprints, sense organs, brain chemistry etc. The mind has no solid, unchanging attribute. Anatta is a depiction of this, rather than just a renunciation of ego. Whether we are sleeping or awake this is the case.
S9: Yes, but this begs the questions:
What are forces (themselves) a culmination of? (a chicken egg thingy)
Why aren’t karmic imprints as impermanent and empty as you claim the "self" to be?
What exactly IS empty brain chemistry within an empty self? Is it not eqally empty? If so, how can an empty brain wave act as a source of anything...other than an empty dream world? ; ^ )
Doesn’t it seem to you as if you are just picking and choosing, what causes what? Must one not look back far enough to find the original cause, or is it effect?
And so on…
It seems almost like we are debating what is more important anatomy or physiology (aka form or process), when anyone in medicine will tell you that you can’t have one without the other. It is a yin/yang thingy. ; ^ )
In other words, I believe we must find more of an "over view" than simply saying it is a process. We cannot have a process floating in a vacuum, can we?
AM: The reason "dream" seems slippery in reference to this is because we are moving through space that is not just a "dream".
S9: Why not? Both time and space are another yin/yang thingy, and they both abide in dualistic mind. If the mind is a dream machine, as I believe it to be, it could/would incorporate both time and space in order to include both movement and change…more like a video game than a snap shot of stark stillness.
AM: Rather, there is a dreaming mind that is moving through space, and because it is dreaming, projects meaning onto everything.
S9: Again, I see this as picking and choosing. Why couldn’t a dream project things while it also is projecting meaning, like multitasking? ; ^ )
(Philosophical Idealism says there is no world out there, at/all, and that everything is a projection of the mind...EVERYTHING.)
I am not ignoring the rest of your interesting post. I am just keeping it short as not to over burden you, and to save on the “Whew” factor. ; ^ )
I will go back and grab more, later, if you remain interested.
s9:What are forces (themselves) a culmination of? (a chicken egg thingy)
Matt:As we cling to the notions we attribute to objects and ideas, it builds up like plaque on teeth.
s9:Why aren’t karmic imprints as impermanent and empty as you claim the "self" to be?
Matt:They absolutely are impermanent and empty. We sustain them in the moment with our energy. Where do you think all of our energy goes?
s9: What exactly IS empty brain chemistry within an empty self? Is it not eqally empty? If so, how can an empty brain wave act as a source of anything...other than an empty dream world? ; ^ )
Matt: If you mean empty, as in not-real, I think you're missing the target. I am saying they are empty of attributed qualities. They are absent of labels.
s9: Doesn’t it seem to you as if you are just picking and choosing, what causes what?
No... I'm not insisting that some forms have substance, and some forms have no substance, I'm saying that all forms have no inherent qualities. Much like objects can't have color without light, objects cannot have qualities without the mind.
s9: Must one not look back far enough to find the original cause, or is it effect?
Matt: Because there is a continuity of cause-effect, the original cause is present in the moment. I feel its clinging to false notions, but my teacher said to me when asked this question "We can't travel back, so contemplating first cause is mental masturbation" (this is not an exact quote, but a paraphrase)
s9: It seems almost like we are debating what is more important anatomy or physiology (aka form or process), when anyone in medicine will tell you that you can’t have one without the other. It is a yin/yang thingy. ; ^ )
Matt: I am saying that without one, there is no other. I don't consider either one to be more important than the other.
s9: In other words, I believe we must find more of an "over view" than simply saying it is a process. We cannot have a process floating in a vacuum, can we?
Matt: The process is the overview. If you look at Buddha's words about right speech, he converts "Why do we suffer" into "What are the conditions of suffering." Instead of viewing forms as the source of continuity, if you can switch to see the process as the only source of continuity, and the forms as ultimately empty, then you can see how your "dream" world is fabricated in a moment to moment observation of an empty, ever changing world.
AM: The reason "dream" seems slippery in reference to this is because we are moving through space that is not just a "dream".
S9: Why not? Both time and space are another yin/yang thingy, and they both abide in dualistic mind. If the mind is a dream machine, as I believe it to be, it could/would incorporate both time and space in order to include both movement and change…more like a video game than a snap shot of stark stillness.
Well, if you get hit by a car in a dream, you don't end up in the hospital. I think regarding this reality as a dream takes away some of its meaning. I admit it depends on how you regard dreaming, but also dreaming is usually used to describe a specific state of mind when we are sleeping.
AM: Rather, there is a dreaming mind that is moving through space, and because it is dreaming, projects meaning onto everything.
S9: Again, I see this as picking and choosing. Why couldn’t a dream project things while it also is projecting meaning, like multitasking? ; ^ )
(Philosophical Idealism says there is no world out there, at/all, and that everything is a projection of the mind...EVERYTHING.)
It seems to me to be looking in the wrong direction to consider the tree outside to be comprised only of objects my mind is projecting. That sounds like hyper-ego. For instance, is aMatt comprised only of the projections of s9's mind?
I say that aMatt is more than s9's projections, and yet depending on your awareness of aMatt, your mind might only regard me as a projection of its own assumptions and observations. Penetrating that pattern of projection is waking from the dream, no?
M: As we cling to the notions we attribute to objects and ideas, it builds up like plaque on teeth.
M: They absolutely are impermanent and empty. We sustain them in the moment with our energy. Where do you think all of our energy goes?
S9: Empty objects/idea, empty plaque, empty energy…they are all both empty and impermanent or just like a dream, they are un-Real of anything except imagination. Because of this, we can just drop them all like yesterdays old news.
I believe the Buddha pointed out that if something was both co-dependent and impermanent this was the litmus test for them as also being un-Real; an illusion.
M: If you mean empty, as in not-real, I think you're missing the target. I am saying they are empty of attributed qualities. They are absent of labels.
S9: We separate things not simply with words such as calling something a tree, we also separate it out by outlining it picturially in our minds, so that it is not simply a wash of colors and takes on individuality. This is also a type of labeling. A practice of "Bare Attention" often brings one beyond such outlining.
The mind is the great separator. These separating factors are purely arbitrary on our part. We believe that they are real separating factors only because we are sharing them with others, and they say, “Yes, I see that too, even if you aren’t there to point it out to me.”
But, what we forget is that many of our mental attributes are species specific. A cat on the other hand may look out and see this world completely differently. So for all due purposes we are all living in that small space between our ears. ; ^ )
M: “…objects cannot have qualities without the mind.”
S9: Are objects without qualities actually even objects at all? What exactly isn’t a mind object?
M: Because there is a continuity of cause-effect, the original cause is present in the moment.
S9: Indeed. Perhaps I should have said to look more deeply into the root, not indicating the past in any way.
M: I am saying that without one, there is no other. I don't consider either one to be more important than the other, as in “The process is the overview.”
S9: Yet it seems that you do emphasize "process" over form, do you not? (See below)
M: The process is the overview. If you look at Buddha's words about right speech, he converts "Why do we suffer" into "What are the conditions of suffering."
S9: Or couldn’t Buddha be saying equally, what do we “Identify with,” which causes us suffering?
After the Buddha was ‘Awakened’ the world of cause and effect went merrily on its way as usual. Buddha even ate poison mushrooms (perhaps empty, but still quite painful), which caused his bodily death. So Gautama didn’t escape cause and effect, did he? What he did escape IMO was Identification with Gautama and the painful body.
M: Instead of viewing forms as the source of continuity, if you can switch to see the process as the only source of continuity, and the forms as ultimately empty, then you can see how your "dream" world is fabricated in a moment-to-moment observation of an empty, ever changing world.
S9: Isn’t this (above) a good definition of the dreaming mind?
M: Well, if you get hit by a car in a dream, you don't end up in the hospital.
S9: Of course you do. You dream you go to the hospital. ; ^ ) There is a sleeping dream and what some call a waking dream…these do not mix and match. Yet when you are immerged in either one, you are pretty sure it is actually taking place.
M: I think regarding this reality as a dream takes away some of its meaning.
S9: I thought you said meaning was an empty thing…non-existent outside of a pretend universe?
M: I admit it depends on how you regard dreaming, but also dreaming is usually used to describe a specific state of mind when we are sleeping.
S9: During the day we are sleep walking.
Some have said that the sleeping dream is merely a dream within a dream.
M: It seems to me to be looking in the wrong direction to consider the tree outside to be comprised only of objects my mind is projecting.
S9: Perhaps you are taking too much for granted. If I were to hypnotize you and tell you that the tree was a cow, you would probably try to milk it. Why waste the milk.
; ^ )
The mind itself is very suggestible and often believes what it has been programmed to believe or see.
In medicine there is a treatment based purely on suggestion, called the placebo effect. They have found that if someone believes a medicine you have given them will work, it will bring relief. So often they give out sugar pills with great effect.
True Story: One night in the hospital, I was caring for an older fellow who was in very great pain, and his meds were not carrying him until he could have another dose of pain meds without harm. Yet he was screaming and pleading for more far too early.
What could I do? I was "between a rock and a hard place."
So I decided to try out the placebo effect that I had been reading so much about. With great theatric I said, “Okay but this time only, as much as I shouldn't" da/da/da (going for an Academy Award), I gave in and drew up a syringe of sterile water.
It worked fantastic. Within a 2 or 3 minutes, he quieted right down and fell into a blessed, restful sleep, (when actually the pain med, if I had administered it, would have taken 10 minutes). The mind is a truly magical thing. : ^ )
M: That sounds like hyper-ego. For instance, is aMatt comprised only of the projections of s9's mind?
S9: No that would be solipsism. There are actually many Matt’s. I have one. You have one. Actually every person who meets you has another. We each live in our own subjective landscape, peopled by opinions.
As I struggle through yet another inconclusive discussion on the meaning of anatta, I continue to ask myself what part of it empowers my limping along the Noble Eightfold Path, and how it will inform how I behave towards myself, other people and the world around me. How, indeed, will more pilpul increase benevolence, generosity, equanimity and a grateful mind?
It's possible to point to guides that explain the non-self concept, but there are guides even in our modern world to make this easier to digest. The following thought is my words, from my experience, so take it as you may.....the 'non-self' are merely the subconscious processes that happen continually in the mind, the machine itself that takes in sensory data, memory data, applies logic and reason developed through the creation of pathways that have 'grown' with experience.
Normally we do not directly see this non-self, this subconscious. All of our thoughts and ultimately actions begin there, and the trends that have accumulated throughout a lifetime continue as a stream of causality leading to frustration/suffering/unsatisfactoriness ('dukkha'). To hear the Dharma.....is input that can be reasonable to the subconscious and lead to trends that will ultimately lead to the cessation of underlying drives (desires, hates, need for existence).
In dreams we perceive some of these background processes that are moving forth despite conscious effort. In deep meditation we may see this true nature of the mind as it is working. The thoughts arising on their own, of conditions, and affecting the decisions and the actions. This foundational 'base of operations' of our mind is purified through directed and sustained effort to understand the nature of reality through observation and meditation.
Please don't take offense if this clashes with your views. After all, I may be entirely wrong and no one can show.....only point.
Placebo is fine and well, and I agree it can often work, especially in areas of subjectivity. They do not always work, and often they do not work. No matter how deeply hypnotic your mind, a tree will not give milk, it does not spontaneously shift in the waking world like it might in a dream. The liquid in the syringe did not spontaneously shift into a different chemical structure. It remained water in the presence of the man's mind projecting different meaning into it.
Even if you were 100% convinced I was a cow, I would not produce milk. Much like people who deny karma do not escape it through the denial.
I don't consider form to be more or less important than process. What I am saying is that as the moment is unfolding, we are in a process of applying labels to forms that we are observing. Sure, you could say that through "Bare Attention" you can stop outlining, but is that helpful? Through mindlessness, you can stop observing karma, but does that still its effects? Isn't it more productive to penetrate the truth and examine it, than close your eyes to a lie?
When it comes to choosing the conventions we apply to the world of shapes and colors, we can just accept that our conventions come from a place of projection. This loosens the object's hold on us, or the solid quality we attribute to conventions. Simply labeling the conventions or saying as a "dream" is only trading chains for chains. No?
With warmth,
Matt
I did respond to each of your points, then lost what I typed. I didn't have the heart to go back through, so I gave an overview.
As I struggle through yet another inconclusive discussion on the meaning of anatta, I continue to ask myself what part of it empowers my limping along the Noble Eightfold Path, and how it will inform how I behave towards myself, other people and the world around me. How, indeed, will more pilpul increase benevolence, generosity, equanimity and a grateful mind?
This is a great question. I can only speak of personal experience. In the absence of any strict forced convention, there is a natural arising of benevolence and equanimity. When I allow myself to let go of my own conventional reality and apply my heart into what is appearing in another's world, the forms that are taking shape in their world are much more apparent, making subjective relating much more direct.
Ah, well... I'll ask the jerk holding the gun to your head, forcing you to engage, to leave you alone. So, you can get back to your studies of macroscopic importance.
S: As I struggle through yet another inconclusive discussion on the meaning of anatta, I continue to ask myself what part of it empowers my limping along the Noble Eightfold Path, and how it will inform how I behave towards myself, other people and the world around me.
S9: I think you have put your finger right on it. Asking how a discussion of any kind will help you socially, or with your social skills, is like asking how meditation is going to feed the hungry. ; ^ )
However, I do think we should put some time into understanding the N8FP, and the Anatta Doctrine, because this might just relieve that limp of yours/ours.
S: How, indeed, will more pilpul increase benevolence, generosity, equanimity and a grateful mind?
S9: Indeed wisdom can be a great gift in our life.
If we truly understood the Anatta Doctrine, a spontaneous and wonderful fruit would surely come out of it.
If for one minute we could dis-identify with our ego self, we would surely find compassion in its fullness. But, as long as we fearfully defend this ego self there is no room for understanding compassion in its fullness.
I don’t believe that equanimity lives comfortably along side of fear.
True benevolence springs from understanding the lack of separation between me and thee.
Generosity is made simple when we understand that in helping others, we are actually helping our self.
Gratitude comes naturally to a (wo)man that sees directly that (s)he can no longer be harmed, or has traveled beyond suffering.
Are these not qualities we pursue through understanding, or through our personal, intense investigation?
As I struggle through yet another inconclusive discussion on the meaning of anatta, I continue to ask myself what part of it empowers my limping along the Noble Eightfold Path, and how it will inform how I behave towards myself, other people and the world around me. How, indeed, will more pilpul increase benevolence, generosity, equanimity and a grateful mind?
I think it's important to at least understand the purpose of specific teachings — such as those on anatta — so that they're used skillfully, which is essentially the point of the water-snake simile in MN 22.
Personally, I don't think the teachings on anatta are designed to directly increase benevolence and generosity (although that can be a side-effect of overcoming the perceived duality between subject and object as Matt has already pointed out) as much as they're designed to increase equanimity and non-attachment.
M: Placebo is fine and well, and I agree it can often work, especially in areas of subjectivity. They do not always work, and often they do not work.
S9: Hypnosis doesn’t always work either. But they both work pretty much in proportion to our personal suggestibility, or expectations.
From what I have seen, however, in my own life is that meditation somehow has a cleansing effect against these personal bias,’ (aka habits of thought), which have built up, often unnoticed, over time.
M: No matter how deeply hypnotic your mind, a tree will not give milk.
S9: Perhaps not actual milk, but under deep hypnosis the subject will be certain that it did give milk.
M: The liquid in the syringe did not spontaneously shift into a different chemical structure.
S9: This matters very little. The pain was relieved by the endorphins his own body released because he was certain that the med was in their system. Mind over matter. This was a physical response to his idea or expectation. I believe that suffering is similar to this, only in the reverse.
M: Much like people who deny karma do not escape it through the denial.
S9: I do not deny that things take place. If you drink a glass of water you are more than likely not any longer going to be thirsty. I do however question the whole thing about a mistake of some kind requiring a punishment to balance it out.
If you are foolish, and act from foolishness, certainly life will be harder.
M: I don't consider form to be more or less important than process. What I am saying is that as the moment is unfolding, we are in a process of applying labels to forms that we are observing.
S9: Of course, I don’t think anyone will deny that the mind works in this way. But is this a problem, or a necessity? If I say something is a tree ,or even that I love trees, will that action in fact cause me to suffer? I think not.
If however I require that outcomes always follow my wishes, than I may actually suffer when they do not. If I think because I am a good person that bad things shouldn’t happen to me, I fear I am in for a big surprise.
: ^ (
M: Sure, you could say that through "Bare Attention" you can stop outlining, but is that helpful?
S9: I have heard practitioners of this particular practice say that it is very revealing to see just how much our mind overlays upon what we see. Clear sight is often a form of freedom. It frees us from believing everything the mind whispers in our ears simply must be true. Often we can bat an idea away like a pesky fly. We do not need to honor ever stray thought.
M: When it comes to choosing the conventions we apply to the world of shapes and colors, we can just accept that our conventions come from a place of projection. This loosens the object's hold on us, or the solid quality we attribute to conventions.
S9: But isn’t that what I said, but even more so? I said not only forms, but also process was a projection of the mind…"Everything" is a projection of the mind. If what you say above is true, and freedom from conventions Liberates us in to the same degree of which we accept this, than wouldn’t I be geometrically just that much more free?
M: Simply labeling the conventions or saying as a "dream" is only trading chains for chains. No?
S9: I am afraid I cannot follow this reasoning, as I am thinking that realizing that thoughts aren’t "the whole ballgame" is a freeing notion. Could you explain yourself further, please?
Each and every one of us born as a human being has a birthplace: we have our parents as our birthplace. So why did the Buddha formulate the teaching on sustained conditions only from the factor of unawareness onwards? What unawareness comes from, he didn't say. Unawareness has to have a mother and father just as we do, and we learn from the above line that thitibhutam is its mother and father. Thitibhutam refers to the primal mind. When the primal mind is imbued with delusion, there is a sustaining factor: the condition of unawareness. Once there is unawareness, it acts as the sustenance for the fashioning of sankhara, mental fashionings, together with the act of clinging to them, which gives rise to states of becoming and birth. In other words, these things will have to keep on arising and giving rise to each other continually. They are thus called sustained or sustaining conditions because they support and sustain one another.
Awareness and unawareness both come from thitibhutam. When thitibhutam is imbued with unawareness, it isn't wise to its conditions; but when it is imbued with awareness, it realizes its conditions for what they really are. This is how the matter appears when considered with the clear insight leading to emergence (vutthana-gamini vipassana).
To summarize: Thitibhutam is the primal instigator of the cycle of death and rebirth. Thus it is called the root source of the three (see § 12). When we are to cut the cycle of death and rebirth so that it disconnects and vanishes into nothingness, we have to train the primal instigator to develop awareness, alert to all conditions for what they really are. It will then recover from its delusion and never give rise to any conditions again. Thitibhutam, the root instigator, will stop spinning, and this will end our circling through the cycle of death and rebirth.
I vote for non-self as opposed to not-self or no-self.
The reason is that it matches up with other terms like non-conception, non-perception, non-volition, non-attachment, non-acceptance, non-rejection, non-action, etc. all associated with the non-self.
S9: Hypnosis doesn’t always work either. But they both work pretty much in proportion to our personal suggestibility, or expectations.
From what I have seen, however, in my own life is that meditation somehow has a cleansing effect against these personal bias,’ (aka habits of thought), which have built up, often unnoticed, over time.
Matt: This archetype inspired the "plaque on teeth" metaphor.
S9: Perhaps not actual milk, but under deep hypnosis the subject will be certain that it did give milk.
Matt: And my point is that simply thinking the tree gives milk will not nourish you in the same way as finding milk. When it comes to suffering and karma, acting right is more nourishing than acting in a way you're hypnotically thinking is right but actually isn't. Proselytizing for instance.
S9: I do not deny that things take place. If you drink a glass of water you are more than likely not any longer going to be thirsty. I do however question the whole thing about a mistake of some kind requiring a punishment to balance it out.
If you are foolish, and act from foolishness, certainly life will be harder.
Matt: Yes, karmic buildup isn't about punishment, its about continued mental imprints that leave you convinced of one thing and blind to another. Plaque on your teeth is not about punishment, its a natural buildup of the unnecessary kind. Its not "bad". (Yes, I had just gone to the dentist when the metaphor first came up in our conversation here. )
S9: Of course, I don’t think anyone will deny that the mind works in this way. But is this a problem, or a necessity? If I say something is a tree ,or even that I love trees, will that action in fact cause me to suffer? I think not.
Matt: Regarding it as a tree is fine, of course. Insisting it is a tree or that it needs love... that is when you suffer. Preferences and using conventions are not an issue until you forget that you're just using conventions and have preferences, and become insistent or aggressive.
M: Simply labeling the conventions or saying as a "dream" is only trading chains for chains. No?
S9: I am afraid I cannot follow this reasoning, as I am thinking that realizing that thoughts aren’t "the whole ballgame" is a freeing notion. Could you explain yourself further, please?
It doesn't seem accurate to regard the phenomena in our world as a dream, rather it seems to be superimposing another unnecessary layer on top of reality. It seems possible that we define dream differently.
P: Can you explain in your experience what is this thitibhutam that Ajahn Mun refers to?
S9: This is how I interpret this article: The root instigator of the cycle of death and rebirth.
(I hope that is what you were asking me to do). : ^ )
Q: (para): Un-awareness (aka ignorance) has to have a mother and father (aka a source) just as we do. ‘Thitibhutam’ (aka primal mind) is its source of ignorance. (You can see in this way what I see when I look at the words of your quote in this way).
S9: What does it mean to me? That everything is co-dependent, even the mind. Is primal mind the same thing as mind as we conventionally think of it? Well, yes and no. Primal mind IMO it Pure Awareness unscarred by thoughts and emotions, or Pure Identity. When we speak conventionally of the mind, it is a hogpog of notions like the physical brain dressed up in ego identity and the many imaginations that monkey mind cooks up.
Q: When the primal mind is imbued with delusion, there is a sustaining factor: the condition of unawareness.
S9: I think that he is referring to habits of mind as well as the physical pathways (or traces, a couple of which are called engrams and synapses) that our brains actually build up over time, this includes what we call memory, not to mention our emotion preferences for the familiar in order to create feelings of comfort and safety. This is pretty much what he said, I believe, in a less western fashion… (Below).
Q: “Once there is unawareness, it acts as the sustenance for the fashioning of sankharas, mental fashionings, together with the act of clinging to them, which gives rise to states of becoming and birth.”
Q: Awareness and unawareness both come from thitibhutam.
S9: I do not agree with this statement, above, because it makes Awareness seem like it is also a part of becoming. Primal Mind (aka Pure Awareness) does not become, as the word primal means first. If Primal Mind or Awareness became that would certainly indicate that something else was first, a contradiction in terms. : ^ (
Q: When thitibhutam is imbued with unawareness, it isn't wise to its conditions; but when it is imbued with awareness, it realizes its conditions for what they really are. This is how the matter appears when considered with the clear insight leading to emergence.
S9: We must be very careful with our words or we cause confusion.
For instance if Awareness is primal or the source, than it is foundational and EVERYTHING is built upon it. It doesn’t come and go. Thoughts give us false impressions, because in their coming and going we wrongfully unite Awareness with thoughts and believe that Awareness is also coming and going. But this is certainly not the case.
In meditation we come to realize that thoughts actually swim in an ocean of Awareness. Our first glimpse of this is often when we still our thought sufficiently enough to notice there is a tiny space between them, which remains constant. After a while though we come to notice that Awareness is actually always present and the thoughts are a thin coating upon Awareness, like watercolors.
Q: We have to train the primal instigator to develop awareness, alert to all conditions for what they really are.
S9: Awareness isn’t actually developed, it is simply noticed. It is the monkey mind that must be trained. We must come to see exactly what we are not. This monkey mind, when trained or skillful, is the perfect tool for seeing the emptiness within imagined worlds or thoughts.
Q: It will then recover from its delusion and never give rise to any conditions again.
S9: Monkey Mind pretty much continues to bow to necessity, because monkey mind is a dream character within a dream landscape. If the body is thirsty, it will desire water or a Pepsi. Mind is not transcended by become other than mind, and we certainly do not neglect the body. We just understand, finally, that we are not this dreaming mind or the dream body, and this Realization takes a great burden of suffering off of our back. We are FREE of the suffering, because we are Awake in the dream.
Anyway, this is my experience of these conditions. Do you see this differently? : ^ )
Matt: This archetype inspired the "plaque on teeth" metaphor.
S9: I realized that you meant plaque building up on the teeth as a metaphor. I hope you also realize that dreaming is a metaphor for buying into the mind’s thoughts. : ^ )
Matt: And my point is that simply thinking the tree gives milk will not nourish you in the same way as finding milk. When it comes to suffering and karma, acting right is more nourishing than acting in a way you're hypnotically thinking is right but actually isn't.
S9: If you are buying into how you act is "the whole ball of wax," you may indeed have what is called good character, or live a moral life, but this will not necessarily get you Enlightened, because you are still taking ownership of your actions and therefore your ego identity. It is important that you realize that these actions are not your actions, or that you not be attached to how you appear to others or yourself.
Now I am not saying that you should become an evil son-of-a-gun in order to prove to yourself that you are not attached to your actions, in any way. But, I am saying that these actions are perfectly automatic, and that this dream ego is perfectly self-correcting. That is why you can simply let go, because you never were in charge.
Matt: Yes, karmic buildup isn't about punishment, it’s about continued mental imprints that leave you convinced of one thing and blind to another.
S9: Yes, and this is why the mind will look at it’s suffering sooner or later and change it’s modes operandi, similar to pulling one’s hand from the fire that burns it. This whole operation is of one piece, similar to a dream flowing out in sequence. This is also similar to the fact that a rose cannot decide to be a tulip. So clarity in time brings us to a place where we allow our rose self to be a rose and grow accordingly, and we do not suffer just because we are not a tulip, and cannot make our self into a tulip. We accept and “Go with the flow.” (Very Taoist.)
Or:
As a Guru of mine said to me in my early days, “We sit back and enjoy the ride.”
M: Preferences and using conventions are not an issue until you forget that you're just using conventions and have preferences, and become insistent or aggressive.
S9: These things cure themselves naturally. It is built in. For instance if you prefer things, which everyone does incidentally, it is not a problem unless it brings you pain. No one cannot actually stop preferring. It is impossible for the mind to do so.
(Oh, you may think you do stop preferring, but what you are actually doing is to prefer not to prefer.) ; ^ )
Q: “A definition for insanity is when you see that something doesn’t work, but you continue to do it anyway.” : ^ (
Q: “Everything in moderation.” This is a piece of wisdom I have always preferred to follow.
; ^ )
One more:
Q: “Who you are IS your destiny.”
M: It doesn't seem accurate to regard the phenomena in our world as a dream, rather it seems to be superimposing another unnecessary layer on top of reality.
S9: To me this whole world, including S9, is a superimposition, and I have never been in charge of how it manifested.
Comments
R: This is beyond the pale S9. Plenty of people, tons of people, get the Buddha just fine, without controversy. What you are saying is that you get him, and all those Buddhists who have taken refuge don't. I see no way of addressing your idee fixe.
S9: No, what I am saying is…That…until we ALL are 100% Realized as the Buddha was, that we are not completely getting the Buddha and what He said, and until that day comes we should certainly question, and re-question, everything we think we believe that we already know. There is a very good chance that we are missing something in His message.
Nothing obstructs like complacency, and complacency is a child of thinking that we already know.
Warm Regards,
S9
Re: S9: A question: Who says this ongoing process, is not me? Can the process say,"This process is not me?" Isn’t that a contradiction?
I think you're touching on the root here of why it is intrinsically flawed to equate "not-self" to "not-me".
AM: I caught some heat for offering that not-self is more equal to "without an independent structure", but as I practice, it remains the most consistent and logical interpretation of the word anatta.
S9: Interesting phrasing, "without an independent structure".
I also read somewhere, at Wiki I think, that anatta could mean “without perfection.”
However the atta, (or atman) was always considered to be without, or beyond form. So are you actually indicating that there is nothing outside of the mind and her structures, aka no-thing but thoughts? I don’t believe Buddha was into nihilism. I further believe when Buddha spoke of emptiness that he was referring to something (for want of a better word) transcendent of thought.
Don’t be attached to the impermanent makes no sense to me if there is nothing outside of the mind. The mind is not simply attached to the impermanent. The mind is the impermanent personified. Even the concept OF impermanence is a mind object.
AM: Some of your posts do seem to describe a grasping... like you want an eternal self to exist, or expect it to exist somehow.
S9: If this Eternal Self were other than my very “Being” or my “Buddha Nature,” than certainly I might have to grasp it, or cling to it in order to own it. But, if Buddha Nature were my very intrinsic “Being,” than why on earth would I have to grasp it? You cannot lose, or gain for that matter, what you already are.
I’m curious to see your reply as I enjoy your contributions.
Warm Regards,
S9
The Wiki ...
Also, Ive never practiced for any length of time in a Vajrayana Sangha, but as a kid my big sister took me to a talk by her teacher Tomo Geshe Rinpoche. I didn't understand much from the old man, and can't even remember whether it was him speaking or someone else translating. But two things stood out, A story about the Buddha stopping an mad elephant with lights from his fingers
Your take on this seems to be unique.
No, not at all. I'm saying that the mind has no independent, inherent structures. There is no character, no static substance... they are dependent on other forces, such as karmic volition and the senses. When saying "this is anatta" I see that the renunciation of self is not counterpoint to "me". It is not saying "What is being experienced does not belong to me". It is saying "This ongoing experience has no static, independent quality."
Because the step after assuming there are static objects in the world or mind might be to tie a knot of perceived static qualities into a self, sometimes the anatta repetition might be aiming at the second arrow, the "self" rather than the forces that comprise the "self" which would be that bundle. It just seems to me to be more direct to let it cut the root of the fixation, rather than attempt to still the grasping of ownership toward the false objects.
I don't find this to be nihilism at all. Its not as though perceptions become ignorant of conventional meaning, but there is a direct noticing of the difference between conventional archetypes and inherent existence. We can solidify the observation into moments of meaning, but it does not force itself into us. It lets the relationship between "me, you and it" to be based on a common harmony between the three, rather than a single fixated relationship between two of those, forcing its way into the third. Does that make sense?
You can apply that "me, you, it" to any trinity archetype... "mind, body, self" "teacher, student, lesson" "art, artist, audience" etc. Its not to deny the presence of one of the three, but in recognizing that not one of the three has a fixed status, the solid nature of the tripod collapses into a state without clinging.
I'm not quite sure what these words are pointing toward. What I mean is that some of your ideas seem to express "being" and "Buddha nature" and "eternal awareness" to be the same thing. I don't think this is the case. We have the potential to be awake, but that does not mean we are. You could even say our natural state is Buddha nature, but that does not mean we are manifesting from our natural state.
Buddha was without suffering, internal urge/clinging or whathaveyou. "Being a Buddha" is different than simply being what is... its more specific than that. I am here and now, with clinging to attachments, which means I am not Buddha. I have the seed, but not the fruit. Calling the seed a fruit does not make it grow, nor is it accurate. I'm not trying to needle semantics, but distinguish between "what is now" and "what is natural" and so forth. Its different.
With warmth,
Matt
Self (atta), in the philosophical sense as opposed to it's conventional usage, is defined as that which is "permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change" (SN 24.3). Our sense of self, the ephemeral "I," on the other hand, is merely a mental imputation, the product of what the Buddha called a process of "I-making and my-making."
In the simplest of terms, the Buddha taught that whatever is inconstant is stressful, and whatever is stressful is not-self—with the goal being to essentially take this [analytical] knowledge, along with a specific set of practices such as meditation, as a stepping stone to what I can only describe as a profound psychological event that radically changes the way the mind relates to experience. That doesn't mean, however, that the teachings on not-self are understood to deny individuality (MN 22) or imply that the conventional person doesn't exist (SN 22.22). The way I understand it, they merely break down the conceptual idea of a self — i.e., that which is satisfactory, permanent and completely subject to our control — in relation to the various aspects of our experience that we falsely cling to as "me" or '"mine'" (SN 22.59).
So in essence, the Buddhist teachings on not-self aren't merely assertions that we have no self; they are a method for deconstructing our false perceptions about reality, as well as an important tool in removing the vast net of clinging that gives rise to suffering.
This may be a bit of nonsense, but in one of the ways I like to look at it, the conventional viewpoint (sammuti sacca) explains things through subject, verb and object whereas the ultimate viewpoint (paramattha sacca) explains things through verb alone. In essence, things are being viewed from the perspective of activities and processes. This, I think, is incredibly difficult to see, but perhaps what happens here is that once self-identity view (sakkaya-ditthi) is removed, the duality of subject and object is also removed, thereby revealing the level of mere conditional phenomena, i.e., dependent co-arising in action. This mental process is "seen," ignorance is replaced by knowledge and vision of things as they are (yatha-bhuta-nana-dassana), and nibbana, then, would be the "letting go" of what isn't self through the dispassion (viraga) invoked in seeing the inconstant (anicca) and stressful (dukkha) nature of clinging to false refuges that are neither fixed nor stable (anatta).
Identification with the "blank screen" is an error. It is Emptiness (in that respect), identification as Emptiness makes self. Emptiness is not self, Form is not self.
The blank screen and the objects are transcended with the cessation of identification with both. They remain in the form of an expedient, as two sides of one action, gesture, occasion. No more no less.
None of which touches a Nice Healthy Conventional self. You may still prefer chocolate icecream, I may still prefer Vanilla.
S9 Ive revisited this post and re-edited it to try and convey in the best way I can. I'm not sure what else there is to say. Only that "greed, hatred and delusion" have not been uprooted in this practitioner, so practice goes on.
I would have to say that there is no contradiction, or rather that the contradiction only arises from the way you phrased the question. To ask "who says this ongoing process is not me?" or to ask "who does the identifying?", "who does the not identifying?" implies an I, which is erroneous. The question is simply ill-phrased. Consider Descartes famous "cogito ergo sum". Is that a valid conclusion? In Latin, the pronoun is implicit in the verb "sum", however the English translation "I think therefore I am" the pronoun is extracted and objectified and therein precisely lies the illusion. All that Descartes can really say for sure is that because there is thinking there is being, or because there is mental experience, there is experience. The statement is thus just a tautology, because no thinker can be derived from the process of thinking.
Cheers, Thomas
AM: I'm saying that the mind has no independent, inherent structures. There is no character, no static substance... they are dependent on other forces, such as karmic volition and the senses. When saying "this is anatta" I see that the renunciation of self is not counterpoint to "me". It is not saying "What is being experienced does not belong to me". It is saying "This ongoing experience has no static, independent quality."
S9: Let’s see if I am grasping your meaning here. You are saying that the mind is ONLY a process, correct? You are also saying that this process needs nothing to sustain it in its perpetual motion? Can you point out for me please, if I am in fact understanding you correctly, what is different in this paradigm from my depicting the finite world (aka mind process), as a dream ONLY?
There is nothing substantial nor static in a dream. It is simply a going-on-ness. This is no actual self within a dream, as both the character and the doing are but one process united within a story line of imagination. This indeed is the co-dependent arising spoken of. How could there be anything independent within such as this? I am thinking we may be in agreement as for as this explanation goes.
However where I believe we part ways is that I acknowledge, no have actually witnessed the real possibility of transcendence, or liberation from this dream…what some call Nirvana. Nirvana isn’t a place nor is it a mind object. It is not dualistic in any way. So one cannot say that Nirvana is either a process, nor is it static in the way mind might believe. It is alive without definition, aka omnipotent.
Mind is only capable of understanding what Nirvana is not, and so the Buddha put us on task, to see through and to drop everything that we possibly could. The vast emptiness of all thing-ness is Nirvana, and yet at the same time Nirvana is a vast capacity beyond the mind’s comprehension. It is not an individual self, like a soul personified, yet at the same time it is the Being, the Ever-Present Here and Now in this Immediate Moment of every imagined possibility.
AM: Because the step after assuming there are static objects in the world or mind might be to tie a knot of perceived static qualities into a self, sometimes the anatta repetition might be aiming at the second arrow, the "self" rather than the forces that comprise the "self" which would be that bundle. It just seems to me to be more direct to let it cut the root of the fixation, rather than attempt to still the grasping of ownership toward the false objects.
S9: I couldn’t agree more with you, if I understand you correctly. The quickest way to quit this prison of the mind is to dis-identify with the ego-self, at least as it is understood by the mind, to be “who we are.” We are certainly entangled in the details only after taking ownership of this ego-self, aka dream self.
AM: I don't find this to be nihilism at all. Its not as though perceptions become ignorant of conventional meaning, but there is a direct noticing of the difference between conventional archetypes and inherent existence.
S9: When you say “inherent existence,” what exactly do you mean?
AM: We can solidify the observation into moments of meaning, but it does not force itself into us.
S9: Are you saying, “In the dream but not of the dream,” aka participating in the dream like play?
(Or what others have coined, “Awake in the dream.”)
AM: It lets the relationship between "me, you and it" to be based on a common harmony between the three, rather than a single fixated relationship between two of those, forcing its way into the third. Does that make sense?
S9: Actually no, sorry for my slow wit. ; ^ ) Could you either elucidate further or state this slightly differently? Thanks. : ^ )
AM: You can apply that "me, you, it" to any trinity archetype... "mind, body, self" "teacher, student, lesson" "art, artist, audience" etc. Its not to deny the presence of one of the three, but in recognizing that not one of the three has a fixed status, the solid nature of the tripod collapses into a state without clinging.
S9: Oops, this too has me flummoxed. Flesh it out could you, please. : ^ )
Re: S9: If this Eternal Self were other than my very “Being” or my “Buddha Nature,” than certainly I might have to grasp it, or cling to it in order to own it. But, if Buddha Nature were my very intrinsic “Being,” than why on earth would I have to grasp it? You cannot lose, or gain for that matter, what you already are.
AM: I'm not quite sure what these words are pointing toward. What I mean is that some of your ideas seem to express "being" and "Buddha nature" and "eternal awareness" to be the same thing. I don't think this is the case.
S9: Why not? How do you see this as being wrong?
AM: We have the potential to be awake, but that does not mean we are. You could even say our natural state is Buddha nature, but that does not mean we are manifesting from our natural state.
S9: What exactly are we than, a big nothing? Are you saying that finitude is a big computer game with absolutely nothing to support it? We are born, we suffer, and we die, end of story?
AM: Buddha was without suffering, internal urge/clinging or whathaveyou. "Being a Buddha" is different than simply being what is... its more specific than that. I am here and now, with clinging to attachments, which means I am not Buddha. I have the seed, but not the fruit.
S9: Okay, but what is this fruit, just more emptiness?
AM: Calling the seed a fruit does not make it grow, nor is it accurate.
S9: If a fruit only is gained in time, it is of the nature of impermanence. So what good is this fruit over the seed? Only when the seed and the fruit are One is there a wholeness, a healing of the separation of dualism..
AM: I'm not trying to needle semantics, but distinguish between "what is now" and "what is natural" and so forth. Its different.
S9: Different in what way. I sometimes have trouble following you. My bad! ; ^ )
Warm Regards,
S9
Our "being" is created by our own Store consciousness according to the karma seeds stored in it , and in that sense , in "coming and going" we definitely do not own the " no-coming and no-going" Store consciousness, rather we are owned by it. Just as a human image shown in a monitor can never be described as lasting for any instant, since "he" is just the production of electron currents of data stored and flow from the hard disk of the computer, so do seed currents drain from the Store consciousness, never lasting from one moment to the next. ) , and through the process of seeds purging, the dharma practitioner can became a Arahat when the four defilement Mental Function(心所法)－－ self-delusion (我癡), self-view (我見), egotism (我慢), and self-love (我愛), of the seventh consciousness are purified.
TS: I would have to say that there is no contradiction, or rather that the contradiction only arises from the way you phrased the question. To ask "who says this ongoing process is not me?" or to ask "who does the identifying?", "who does the not identifying?" implies an I, which is erroneous.
S9: Yes, we must be somewhat forgiving of language, which is dualistic in structure. However, it is our personal paradigm that traps us into thinking that the ‘I’ of necessity must be this personified ego-self.
The dualistic structure of language "leads us by the nose" into thinking that our only choice outside of actually being the ego-self is its opposite; the not-being of the ego-self. I am simply saying what if we could step outside of both of these choices by dis-identifying with the paradigm of duality all together? If we might in fact Liberate ourselves from the prison of duality, and too narrow choices?
Is it possible? Many Great Mystics down through the centuries have claimed to have Realized this very Being, intimately, or what I call our “Original Self” before we fell into the dream of duality. It is my contention that this is exactly WHAT the Buddha spoke of when He simply said, “I am Awake.”
TS: Consider Descartes famous "cogito ergo sum". Is that a valid conclusion?
S9: I have often thought that Descartes phrasing stopped short of the truth of what he actually found. If it had been me, I would have rather said, "There is definitely thinking taking place, therefore there must be Being."
If someone not only finds thought, but also watches thought natural way for even a short time, they would certainly notice it coming up and melting away rapidly. So why stop there? : ^ (
I would certainly want to know what either supports or what generates thought, albeit thought is a temporary manifestation, ("All smoke and mirrors."). The very next questions, if you were curious at all and not easily satisfied with partial answers, would certainly be thought...“from what”…”to where”… and “why thoughts at all?”
TS: All that Descartes can really say for sure is that because there is thinking there is being, or because there is mental experience, there is experience. The statement is thus just a tautology, because no thinker can be derived from the process of thinking.
S9: It is not a legitimate tautology, unless thinking is the same exact thing as Being, and I would put forth that it is not. For instance. plants have Being, (do they not?) but are plants actually thinking as we define thinking?
TS: The statement is thus just a tautology, because no thinker can be derived from the process of thinking.
S9: There lies the problem (chick-egg) is Being derived from thought, or is thought simply a by-product of Being, a little like the flaming tail on a comet. Some have said that the Immediate Moment (Here and Now) is the only Real Life, and that thought on the other hand is always the past or memory of what went before, thought being like a river (thoughtstream) flowing out of the source (Being).
Warm Regards,
S9
What I am saying is that the mind is a fluid culmination of forces in the moment such as karmic imprints, sense organs, brain chemistry etc. The mind has no solid, unchanging attribute. Anatta is a depiction of this, rather than just a renunciation of ego. Whether we are sleeping or awake this is the case.
The reason "dream" seems slippery in reference to this is because we are moving through space that is not just a "dream"... rather there is a dreaming mind that is moving through space, and because it is dreaming, projects meaning onto everything.
What you're calling Nirvana I see as a perception that penetrates subjective reality and sees ultimate reality. If dukkha is what collapses the perception into subjective clinging, then perhaps Nirvana is a lasting state you describe. I don't think about it much. I definitely don't consider it some kind of ecstasy finish line where you break the tape and there's a parade and stuff. It sounds like you glorify it.
Actually, I'm saying the opposite. I find that it is faster to look at how the component forces are empty of any fixed meaning... which dissolves the self directly and naturally without having to dis-identify. Its more like not trying to make solid that which is naturally empty.
By conventional archetypes, I am saying the meanings we project onto forms. Ie, chair, bed, anger, life, God, tea kettle, etc. When I say inherent existence I am talking about how all of the archetypes we label do not radiate that label.
A tree might exist without us labeling it, but it has no qualities that are not a direct aggregate of what we are applying. It would not self-reference, it does not refer to itself as a tree. It is empty of meaning. It does not have an inherent set of qualities that exist across all subjective realities. One might call it a tree, one might see an elm, one might see lumber, one might see all the leaves that have to be raked, one might see a baum, one an arbre... etc. Those are all labels of conventional reality, or conventional archetypes. They are of the mind, not of the tree.
Relating to the example above of the tree, as we recognize the natural radiance of the tree (before collapsing it into those conventions) we can relate to it in the way the other person relates to it. If I insist that it is lumber while you insist that it is a leaf factory, then we are dissonant with each other. The "Matt, s9, tree" moment of relating can be more direct and more fluid if two of the three do not insist that the conventions come from the tree.
For instance, if you insist that it is a tree, and I see it as empty, the tree does not insist itself, so the three of us can sit and work with how s9 relates to the tree without the dissonance that comes from multiple forces of insistence. I wouldn't just try to automatically convince you that it isn't a tree, rather I would try to help you work with the tree more skillfully. In giving your interpretations lots of room in my mind, the trinity we create in the moment is more luminous.
This is in contrast to nihilism, where you forcibly deny (or apathetically deny) that the tree has any meaning at all.
Its not "nothing", but perhaps "no-thing". These questions seem to imply a grasping for an eternal s9. This is what I was referring to if I am reading it accurately.
Well, yes. Emptiness in the sense that the perceptions are wide awake and recognize that the forms of self and environment are empty of any fixed meaning. Ie... seeing a forest as it is, not as a group of trees. Seeing people as they are, not just a bunch of students, friends, potential buddhas, but giving them space in your mind to let them be them without projecting any convention onto them.
A fruit is more nourishing to those who eat it. What does it matter to the fruit? Well, as far as sense perceptions, not much. There may be ecstasy or pain, but what matters is that we are awake to the reality in front of us, because others cling and suffer without awareness of how to extract themselves.
If you see a car that is covered in mud, would you say that it is displaying its Buddha nature? That the car is in its natural state? You could, but wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the car is in its natural state with mud on top of it? I think much of the same with people. You can say they are in their natural buddha state always, but it might be more accurate to say that they have buddha nature always, but the mud is on top also. In this case, forces such as clinging, confusion... dukkha is obscuring.
It might be inspiring to say "you are buddha", but it might be more helpful to say "underneath your grasping is a buddha waiting to be reborn"
Whew.
With warmth,
Matt
Here is my question to you. Clinging to views is a trap of the mind, and makes everything that can be possibly thought into a mind object. So couldn’t the Buddha be saying that Buddha Nature is not a view or a thought, which lives within the mind? Couldn’t he be pointing in this way beyond the mind, or what mind is capable of understanding.
So often when anyone uses the word Self, the first thing done by mind is to try and make Self a solid object or story line much like SUPER Ego might like it to be. But is “Being” an object of any kind?
So, YES, Buddha spoke to the more practical side of this equation. Basically he pointed at what the mind can know, that being exactly what we are not. Why? Because the mind can see mind and thinking we were a "mind object" was the biggest problem or obstruction in his time. Seekers were becoming “mind bound,” either in their own perfected actions as a definition of moral and a good self, or in magical inner trance states, like bliss, gained in meditation.
Friendly Regards,
S9
GC: You guys sure can talk a lot considering no one is actually doing the talking!
S9: “In your dreams,” we are saying Stuff. ; ^ )
Miles of Smiles,
S9
S9: Okay but, if that storage is a storage of empty things/thoughts/mind objects, what exactly is it storing anyway…emptiness? ; ^ )
Lets us remember that what we call memory traces is nothing more than a thought in the immediate now. So, perhaps if we had Alzhiemer's there wouldn't be any karma.
; ^ )
Or even how does an accumulation of karmic ingredients jive with impermanence?
Very often these notions do not seem consistent to me, or is it with each other?
: ^ (
S9: There is some lingering on in your impermanence. Is there not? So in your paradigm, we (aka ego-self) are impermanent, but karma is not? Or “Karma is KING.”
; ^ )
S9: What good is an empty Arahat? Is he not just another spark, lasting but a second…Why all of the ado about accomplishments?
S9: Again, what good is a purity that is but a instantaneous spark in the wind?
I am not trying to be a “wise guy” here. : ^ (
I'm really a sweety pie.. ; ^ )
It just seems that we are jumping about with the impermanence somehow lasting as karma, and somehow being important, signified by handing out titles like Arahat. Perhaps you could clear up my confusion over this? Or NOT. : ^ )
Friendly Regards,
S9
AM: What I am saying is that the mind is a fluid culmination of forces in the moment such as karmic imprints, sense organs, brain chemistry etc. The mind has no solid, unchanging attribute. Anatta is a depiction of this, rather than just a renunciation of ego. Whether we are sleeping or awake this is the case.
S9: Yes, but this begs the questions:
What are forces (themselves) a culmination of? (a chicken egg thingy)
Why aren’t karmic imprints as impermanent and empty as you claim the "self" to be?
What exactly IS empty brain chemistry within an empty self? Is it not eqally empty? If so, how can an empty brain wave act as a source of anything...other than an empty dream world? ; ^ )
Doesn’t it seem to you as if you are just picking and choosing, what causes what? Must one not look back far enough to find the original cause, or is it effect?
And so on…
It seems almost like we are debating what is more important anatomy or physiology (aka form or process), when anyone in medicine will tell you that you can’t have one without the other. It is a yin/yang thingy. ; ^ )
In other words, I believe we must find more of an "over view" than simply saying it is a process. We cannot have a process floating in a vacuum, can we?
AM: The reason "dream" seems slippery in reference to this is because we are moving through space that is not just a "dream".
S9: Why not? Both time and space are another yin/yang thingy, and they both abide in dualistic mind. If the mind is a dream machine, as I believe it to be, it could/would incorporate both time and space in order to include both movement and change…more like a video game than a snap shot of stark stillness.
AM: Rather, there is a dreaming mind that is moving through space, and because it is dreaming, projects meaning onto everything.
S9: Again, I see this as picking and choosing. Why couldn’t a dream project things while it also is projecting meaning, like multitasking? ; ^ )
(Philosophical Idealism says there is no world out there, at/all, and that everything is a projection of the mind...EVERYTHING.)
I am not ignoring the rest of your interesting post. I am just keeping it short as not to over burden you, and to save on the “Whew” factor. ; ^ )
I will go back and grab more, later, if you remain interested.
Warm Regards,
S9
: ^ ) I agree with your assessment.
Man is the “talking animal,” like dogs bark.
My cat often just shakes his head at me, as I chatter along endlessly at him. He probably like you, just thinks…”Whatever.”
Friendly Regards,
S9
Matt:As we cling to the notions we attribute to objects and ideas, it builds up like plaque on teeth.
s9:Why aren’t karmic imprints as impermanent and empty as you claim the "self" to be?
Matt:They absolutely are impermanent and empty. We sustain them in the moment with our energy. Where do you think all of our energy goes?
s9: What exactly IS empty brain chemistry within an empty self? Is it not eqally empty? If so, how can an empty brain wave act as a source of anything...other than an empty dream world? ; ^ )
Matt: If you mean empty, as in not-real, I think you're missing the target. I am saying they are empty of attributed qualities. They are absent of labels.
s9: Doesn’t it seem to you as if you are just picking and choosing, what causes what?
No... I'm not insisting that some forms have substance, and some forms have no substance, I'm saying that all forms have no inherent qualities. Much like objects can't have color without light, objects cannot have qualities without the mind.
s9: Must one not look back far enough to find the original cause, or is it effect?
Matt: Because there is a continuity of cause-effect, the original cause is present in the moment. I feel its clinging to false notions, but my teacher said to me when asked this question "We can't travel back, so contemplating first cause is mental masturbation" (this is not an exact quote, but a paraphrase)
s9: It seems almost like we are debating what is more important anatomy or physiology (aka form or process), when anyone in medicine will tell you that you can’t have one without the other. It is a yin/yang thingy. ; ^ )
Matt: I am saying that without one, there is no other. I don't consider either one to be more important than the other.
s9: In other words, I believe we must find more of an "over view" than simply saying it is a process. We cannot have a process floating in a vacuum, can we?
Matt: The process is the overview. If you look at Buddha's words about right speech, he converts "Why do we suffer" into "What are the conditions of suffering." Instead of viewing forms as the source of continuity, if you can switch to see the process as the only source of continuity, and the forms as ultimately empty, then you can see how your "dream" world is fabricated in a moment to moment observation of an empty, ever changing world.
Well, if you get hit by a car in a dream, you don't end up in the hospital. I think regarding this reality as a dream takes away some of its meaning. I admit it depends on how you regard dreaming, but also dreaming is usually used to describe a specific state of mind when we are sleeping.
It seems to me to be looking in the wrong direction to consider the tree outside to be comprised only of objects my mind is projecting. That sounds like hyper-ego. For instance, is aMatt comprised only of the projections of s9's mind?
I say that aMatt is more than s9's projections, and yet depending on your awareness of aMatt, your mind might only regard me as a projection of its own assumptions and observations. Penetrating that pattern of projection is waking from the dream, no?
With warmth,
Matt
M: As we cling to the notions we attribute to objects and ideas, it builds up like plaque on teeth.
M: They absolutely are impermanent and empty. We sustain them in the moment with our energy. Where do you think all of our energy goes?
S9: Empty objects/idea, empty plaque, empty energy…they are all both empty and impermanent or just like a dream, they are un-Real of anything except imagination. Because of this, we can just drop them all like yesterdays old news.
I believe the Buddha pointed out that if something was both co-dependent and impermanent this was the litmus test for them as also being un-Real; an illusion.
M: If you mean empty, as in not-real, I think you're missing the target. I am saying they are empty of attributed qualities. They are absent of labels.
S9: We separate things not simply with words such as calling something a tree, we also separate it out by outlining it picturially in our minds, so that it is not simply a wash of colors and takes on individuality. This is also a type of labeling. A practice of "Bare Attention" often brings one beyond such outlining.
The mind is the great separator. These separating factors are purely arbitrary on our part. We believe that they are real separating factors only because we are sharing them with others, and they say, “Yes, I see that too, even if you aren’t there to point it out to me.”
But, what we forget is that many of our mental attributes are species specific. A cat on the other hand may look out and see this world completely differently. So for all due purposes we are all living in that small space between our ears. ; ^ )
M: “…objects cannot have qualities without the mind.”
S9: Are objects without qualities actually even objects at all? What exactly isn’t a mind object?
M: Because there is a continuity of cause-effect, the original cause is present in the moment.
S9: Indeed. Perhaps I should have said to look more deeply into the root, not indicating the past in any way.
M: I am saying that without one, there is no other. I don't consider either one to be more important than the other, as in “The process is the overview.”
S9: Yet it seems that you do emphasize "process" over form, do you not? (See below)
M: The process is the overview. If you look at Buddha's words about right speech, he converts "Why do we suffer" into "What are the conditions of suffering."
S9: Or couldn’t Buddha be saying equally, what do we “Identify with,” which causes us suffering?
After the Buddha was ‘Awakened’ the world of cause and effect went merrily on its way as usual. Buddha even ate poison mushrooms (perhaps empty, but still quite painful), which caused his bodily death. So Gautama didn’t escape cause and effect, did he? What he did escape IMO was Identification with Gautama and the painful body.
M: Instead of viewing forms as the source of continuity, if you can switch to see the process as the only source of continuity, and the forms as ultimately empty, then you can see how your "dream" world is fabricated in a moment-to-moment observation of an empty, ever changing world.
S9: Isn’t this (above) a good definition of the dreaming mind?
M: Well, if you get hit by a car in a dream, you don't end up in the hospital.
S9: Of course you do. You dream you go to the hospital. ; ^ ) There is a sleeping dream and what some call a waking dream…these do not mix and match. Yet when you are immerged in either one, you are pretty sure it is actually taking place.
M: I think regarding this reality as a dream takes away some of its meaning.
S9: I thought you said meaning was an empty thing…non-existent outside of a pretend universe?
M: I admit it depends on how you regard dreaming, but also dreaming is usually used to describe a specific state of mind when we are sleeping.
S9: During the day we are sleep walking.
Some have said that the sleeping dream is merely a dream within a dream.
M: It seems to me to be looking in the wrong direction to consider the tree outside to be comprised only of objects my mind is projecting.
S9: Perhaps you are taking too much for granted. If I were to hypnotize you and tell you that the tree was a cow, you would probably try to milk it. Why waste the milk.
; ^ )
The mind itself is very suggestible and often believes what it has been programmed to believe or see.
In medicine there is a treatment based purely on suggestion, called the placebo effect. They have found that if someone believes a medicine you have given them will work, it will bring relief. So often they give out sugar pills with great effect.
True Story: One night in the hospital, I was caring for an older fellow who was in very great pain, and his meds were not carrying him until he could have another dose of pain meds without harm. Yet he was screaming and pleading for more far too early.
What could I do? I was "between a rock and a hard place."
So I decided to try out the placebo effect that I had been reading so much about. With great theatric I said, “Okay but this time only, as much as I shouldn't" da/da/da (going for an Academy Award), I gave in and drew up a syringe of sterile water.
It worked fantastic. Within a 2 or 3 minutes, he quieted right down and fell into a blessed, restful sleep, (when actually the pain med, if I had administered it, would have taken 10 minutes). The mind is a truly magical thing. : ^ )
M: That sounds like hyper-ego. For instance, is aMatt comprised only of the projections of s9's mind?
S9: No that would be solipsism. There are actually many Matt’s. I have one. You have one. Actually every person who meets you has another. We each live in our own subjective landscape, peopled by opinions.
“Will the real Matt please stand up?” ; ^ )
Warm Regards,
S9
Normally we do not directly see this non-self, this subconscious. All of our thoughts and ultimately actions begin there, and the trends that have accumulated throughout a lifetime continue as a stream of causality leading to frustration/suffering/unsatisfactoriness ('dukkha'). To hear the Dharma.....is input that can be reasonable to the subconscious and lead to trends that will ultimately lead to the cessation of underlying drives (desires, hates, need for existence).
In dreams we perceive some of these background processes that are moving forth despite conscious effort. In deep meditation we may see this true nature of the mind as it is working. The thoughts arising on their own, of conditions, and affecting the decisions and the actions. This foundational 'base of operations' of our mind is purified through directed and sustained effort to understand the nature of reality through observation and meditation.
Please don't take offense if this clashes with your views. After all, I may be entirely wrong and no one can show.....only point.
Namaste
Placebo is fine and well, and I agree it can often work, especially in areas of subjectivity. They do not always work, and often they do not work. No matter how deeply hypnotic your mind, a tree will not give milk, it does not spontaneously shift in the waking world like it might in a dream. The liquid in the syringe did not spontaneously shift into a different chemical structure. It remained water in the presence of the man's mind projecting different meaning into it.
Even if you were 100% convinced I was a cow, I would not produce milk. Much like people who deny karma do not escape it through the denial.
I don't consider form to be more or less important than process. What I am saying is that as the moment is unfolding, we are in a process of applying labels to forms that we are observing. Sure, you could say that through "Bare Attention" you can stop outlining, but is that helpful? Through mindlessness, you can stop observing karma, but does that still its effects? Isn't it more productive to penetrate the truth and examine it, than close your eyes to a lie?
When it comes to choosing the conventions we apply to the world of shapes and colors, we can just accept that our conventions come from a place of projection. This loosens the object's hold on us, or the solid quality we attribute to conventions. Simply labeling the conventions or saying as a "dream" is only trading chains for chains. No?
With warmth,
Matt
I did respond to each of your points, then lost what I typed. I didn't have the heart to go back through, so I gave an overview.
This is a great question. I can only speak of personal experience. In the absence of any strict forced convention, there is a natural arising of benevolence and equanimity. When I allow myself to let go of my own conventional reality and apply my heart into what is appearing in another's world, the forms that are taking shape in their world are much more apparent, making subjective relating much more direct.
Pilpul and anatta in one paragraph, nice
With warmth,
Matt
These discussions remind me all-too-well of the sort of focus on minutiae I heard from yeshiva scholars.
With humor,
Matt
S: As I struggle through yet another inconclusive discussion on the meaning of anatta, I continue to ask myself what part of it empowers my limping along the Noble Eightfold Path, and how it will inform how I behave towards myself, other people and the world around me.
S9: I think you have put your finger right on it. Asking how a discussion of any kind will help you socially, or with your social skills, is like asking how meditation is going to feed the hungry. ; ^ )
However, I do think we should put some time into understanding the N8FP, and the Anatta Doctrine, because this might just relieve that limp of yours/ours.
S: How, indeed, will more pilpul increase benevolence, generosity, equanimity and a grateful mind?
S9: Indeed wisdom can be a great gift in our life.
If we truly understood the Anatta Doctrine, a spontaneous and wonderful fruit would surely come out of it.
If for one minute we could dis-identify with our ego self, we would surely find compassion in its fullness. But, as long as we fearfully defend this ego self there is no room for understanding compassion in its fullness.
I don’t believe that equanimity lives comfortably along side of fear.
True benevolence springs from understanding the lack of separation between me and thee.
Generosity is made simple when we understand that in helping others, we are actually helping our self.
Gratitude comes naturally to a (wo)man that sees directly that (s)he can no longer be harmed, or has traveled beyond suffering.
Are these not qualities we pursue through understanding, or through our personal, intense investigation?
Warm Regards,
S9
I think it's important to at least understand the purpose of specific teachings — such as those on anatta — so that they're used skillfully, which is essentially the point of the water-snake simile in MN 22.
Personally, I don't think the teachings on anatta are designed to directly increase benevolence and generosity (although that can be a side-effect of overcoming the perceived duality between subject and object as Matt has already pointed out) as much as they're designed to increase equanimity and non-attachment.
M: Placebo is fine and well, and I agree it can often work, especially in areas of subjectivity. They do not always work, and often they do not work.
S9: Hypnosis doesn’t always work either. But they both work pretty much in proportion to our personal suggestibility, or expectations.
From what I have seen, however, in my own life is that meditation somehow has a cleansing effect against these personal bias,’ (aka habits of thought), which have built up, often unnoticed, over time.
M: No matter how deeply hypnotic your mind, a tree will not give milk.
S9: Perhaps not actual milk, but under deep hypnosis the subject will be certain that it did give milk.
M: The liquid in the syringe did not spontaneously shift into a different chemical structure.
S9: This matters very little. The pain was relieved by the endorphins his own body released because he was certain that the med was in their system. Mind over matter. This was a physical response to his idea or expectation. I believe that suffering is similar to this, only in the reverse.
M: Much like people who deny karma do not escape it through the denial.
S9: I do not deny that things take place. If you drink a glass of water you are more than likely not any longer going to be thirsty. I do however question the whole thing about a mistake of some kind requiring a punishment to balance it out.
If you are foolish, and act from foolishness, certainly life will be harder.
M: I don't consider form to be more or less important than process. What I am saying is that as the moment is unfolding, we are in a process of applying labels to forms that we are observing.
S9: Of course, I don’t think anyone will deny that the mind works in this way. But is this a problem, or a necessity? If I say something is a tree ,or even that I love trees, will that action in fact cause me to suffer? I think not.
If however I require that outcomes always follow my wishes, than I may actually suffer when they do not. If I think because I am a good person that bad things shouldn’t happen to me, I fear I am in for a big surprise.
: ^ (
M: Sure, you could say that through "Bare Attention" you can stop outlining, but is that helpful?
S9: I have heard practitioners of this particular practice say that it is very revealing to see just how much our mind overlays upon what we see. Clear sight is often a form of freedom. It frees us from believing everything the mind whispers in our ears simply must be true. Often we can bat an idea away like a pesky fly. We do not need to honor ever stray thought.
M: When it comes to choosing the conventions we apply to the world of shapes and colors, we can just accept that our conventions come from a place of projection. This loosens the object's hold on us, or the solid quality we attribute to conventions.
S9: But isn’t that what I said, but even more so? I said not only forms, but also process was a projection of the mind…"Everything" is a projection of the mind. If what you say above is true, and freedom from conventions Liberates us in to the same degree of which we accept this, than wouldn’t I be geometrically just that much more free?
M: Simply labeling the conventions or saying as a "dream" is only trading chains for chains. No?
S9: I am afraid I cannot follow this reasoning, as I am thinking that realizing that thoughts aren’t "the whole ballgame" is a freeing notion. Could you explain yourself further, please?
Warm Regards,
S9
Can you explain in your experience what is this thitibhutam that Ajahn Mun refers to?
The reason is that it matches up with other terms like non-conception, non-perception, non-volition, non-attachment, non-acceptance, non-rejection, non-action, etc. all associated with the non-self.
Cheers,
WK
From what I have seen, however, in my own life is that meditation somehow has a cleansing effect against these personal bias,’ (aka habits of thought), which have built up, often unnoticed, over time.
Matt: This archetype inspired the "plaque on teeth" metaphor.
S9: Perhaps not actual milk, but under deep hypnosis the subject will be certain that it did give milk.
Matt: And my point is that simply thinking the tree gives milk will not nourish you in the same way as finding milk. When it comes to suffering and karma, acting right is more nourishing than acting in a way you're hypnotically thinking is right but actually isn't. Proselytizing for instance.
S9: I do not deny that things take place. If you drink a glass of water you are more than likely not any longer going to be thirsty. I do however question the whole thing about a mistake of some kind requiring a punishment to balance it out.
If you are foolish, and act from foolishness, certainly life will be harder.
Matt: Yes, karmic buildup isn't about punishment, its about continued mental imprints that leave you convinced of one thing and blind to another. Plaque on your teeth is not about punishment, its a natural buildup of the unnecessary kind. Its not "bad". (Yes, I had just gone to the dentist when the metaphor first came up in our conversation here.
S9: Of course, I don’t think anyone will deny that the mind works in this way. But is this a problem, or a necessity? If I say something is a tree ,or even that I love trees, will that action in fact cause me to suffer? I think not.
Matt: Regarding it as a tree is fine, of course. Insisting it is a tree or that it needs love... that is when you suffer. Preferences and using conventions are not an issue until you forget that you're just using conventions and have preferences, and become insistent or aggressive.
It doesn't seem accurate to regard the phenomena in our world as a dream, rather it seems to be superimposing another unnecessary layer on top of reality. It seems possible that we define dream differently.
With warmth,
Matt
P: Can you explain in your experience what is this thitibhutam that Ajahn Mun refers to?
S9: This is how I interpret this article: The root instigator of the cycle of death and rebirth.
(I hope that is what you were asking me to do). : ^ )
Q: (para): Un-awareness (aka ignorance) has to have a mother and father (aka a source) just as we do. ‘Thitibhutam’ (aka primal mind) is its source of ignorance. (You can see in this way what I see when I look at the words of your quote in this way).
S9: What does it mean to me? That everything is co-dependent, even the mind. Is primal mind the same thing as mind as we conventionally think of it? Well, yes and no. Primal mind IMO it Pure Awareness unscarred by thoughts and emotions, or Pure Identity. When we speak conventionally of the mind, it is a hogpog of notions like the physical brain dressed up in ego identity and the many imaginations that monkey mind cooks up.
Q: When the primal mind is imbued with delusion, there is a sustaining factor: the condition of unawareness.
S9: I think that he is referring to habits of mind as well as the physical pathways (or traces, a couple of which are called engrams and synapses) that our brains actually build up over time, this includes what we call memory, not to mention our emotion preferences for the familiar in order to create feelings of comfort and safety. This is pretty much what he said, I believe, in a less western fashion… (Below).
Q: “Once there is unawareness, it acts as the sustenance for the fashioning of sankharas, mental fashionings, together with the act of clinging to them, which gives rise to states of becoming and birth.”
Q: Awareness and unawareness both come from thitibhutam.
S9: I do not agree with this statement, above, because it makes Awareness seem like it is also a part of becoming. Primal Mind (aka Pure Awareness) does not become, as the word primal means first. If Primal Mind or Awareness became that would certainly indicate that something else was first, a contradiction in terms. : ^ (
Q: When thitibhutam is imbued with unawareness, it isn't wise to its conditions; but when it is imbued with awareness, it realizes its conditions for what they really are. This is how the matter appears when considered with the clear insight leading to emergence.
S9: We must be very careful with our words or we cause confusion.
For instance if Awareness is primal or the source, than it is foundational and EVERYTHING is built upon it. It doesn’t come and go. Thoughts give us false impressions, because in their coming and going we wrongfully unite Awareness with thoughts and believe that Awareness is also coming and going. But this is certainly not the case.
In meditation we come to realize that thoughts actually swim in an ocean of Awareness. Our first glimpse of this is often when we still our thought sufficiently enough to notice there is a tiny space between them, which remains constant. After a while though we come to notice that Awareness is actually always present and the thoughts are a thin coating upon Awareness, like watercolors.
Q: We have to train the primal instigator to develop awareness, alert to all conditions for what they really are.
S9: Awareness isn’t actually developed, it is simply noticed. It is the monkey mind that must be trained. We must come to see exactly what we are not. This monkey mind, when trained or skillful, is the perfect tool for seeing the emptiness within imagined worlds or thoughts.
Q: It will then recover from its delusion and never give rise to any conditions again.
S9: Monkey Mind pretty much continues to bow to necessity, because monkey mind is a dream character within a dream landscape. If the body is thirsty, it will desire water or a Pepsi. Mind is not transcended by become other than mind, and we certainly do not neglect the body. We just understand, finally, that we are not this dreaming mind or the dream body, and this Realization takes a great burden of suffering off of our back. We are FREE of the suffering, because we are Awake in the dream.
Anyway, this is my experience of these conditions. Do you see this differently? : ^ )
Warm Regards,
S9
Matt: This archetype inspired the "plaque on teeth" metaphor.
S9: I realized that you meant plaque building up on the teeth as a metaphor. I hope you also realize that dreaming is a metaphor for buying into the mind’s thoughts. : ^ )
Matt: And my point is that simply thinking the tree gives milk will not nourish you in the same way as finding milk. When it comes to suffering and karma, acting right is more nourishing than acting in a way you're hypnotically thinking is right but actually isn't.
S9: If you are buying into how you act is "the whole ball of wax," you may indeed have what is called good character, or live a moral life, but this will not necessarily get you Enlightened, because you are still taking ownership of your actions and therefore your ego identity. It is important that you realize that these actions are not your actions, or that you not be attached to how you appear to others or yourself.
Now I am not saying that you should become an evil son-of-a-gun in order to prove to yourself that you are not attached to your actions, in any way. But, I am saying that these actions are perfectly automatic, and that this dream ego is perfectly self-correcting. That is why you can simply let go, because you never were in charge.
Matt: Yes, karmic buildup isn't about punishment, it’s about continued mental imprints that leave you convinced of one thing and blind to another.
S9: Yes, and this is why the mind will look at it’s suffering sooner or later and change it’s modes operandi, similar to pulling one’s hand from the fire that burns it. This whole operation is of one piece, similar to a dream flowing out in sequence. This is also similar to the fact that a rose cannot decide to be a tulip. So clarity in time brings us to a place where we allow our rose self to be a rose and grow accordingly, and we do not suffer just because we are not a tulip, and cannot make our self into a tulip. We accept and “Go with the flow.” (Very Taoist.)
Or:
As a Guru of mine said to me in my early days, “We sit back and enjoy the ride.”
M: Preferences and using conventions are not an issue until you forget that you're just using conventions and have preferences, and become insistent or aggressive.
S9: These things cure themselves naturally. It is built in. For instance if you prefer things, which everyone does incidentally, it is not a problem unless it brings you pain. No one cannot actually stop preferring. It is impossible for the mind to do so.
(Oh, you may think you do stop preferring, but what you are actually doing is to prefer not to prefer.) ; ^ )
Q: “A definition for insanity is when you see that something doesn’t work, but you continue to do it anyway.” : ^ (
Q: “Everything in moderation.” This is a piece of wisdom I have always preferred to follow.
; ^ )
One more:
Q: “Who you are IS your destiny.”
M: It doesn't seem accurate to regard the phenomena in our world as a dream, rather it seems to be superimposing another unnecessary layer on top of reality.
S9: To me this whole world, including S9, is a superimposition, and I have never been in charge of how it manifested.
Warm Regards,
S9