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Now, if this analysis is accurate, then I want to talk technique. How to achieve this emotional state in the most constant way possible? Is it just a question of remembering (cognitively) that ultimate reality is what it is and then resting in the resultant emotional state? Or are there other techniques out there that people know about?
Thanks for reading!
Best,
Otiose
The point is that one does not 'remember' to remember. The object is to experience reality as it really is - that the mind is unaffected by relative reality.
The thing with Buddhism is you first have to 'unlearn' what you have previously been taught.
Any technique should focus of the the mind as the object of meditation while allowing thoughts to rise and fall - knowing that all such thoughts are only relative. Your preliminary practices should have convinced you that all thoughts are trigged by the aggregates which are the result of your karmic footprint.
The point is that one does not 'remember' to remember. The object is to experience reality as it really is - that the mind is unaffected by relative reality.
.
Do you think talking about "reality as it really is" will help the questioner stop projecting and do the practice? It won't. Ontological claims are misguiding.
O: About Pure Awareness: I'm assuming that it's not empty -- is that right?
S9: Pure Awareness is certainly empty of all mental objects, which are contained in every concept that the mind can imagine. But Pure Awareness is not than the object called emptiness or blankness. There is actually no way to say what Pure Awareness is, which the mind will not immediately turn into a mind object, because this is how the limiting mind works. Temporary mind is a verb that continuously creates objects for viewing and understanding. Perhaps this is why Pure Awareness is considered transcendent of mind or ‘not-mental.’
Our mind has us thoroughly convinced (like a hypnosis) that if we cannot see it mentally than it simply doesn’t exist. Mind thinks or is convinced that the mind is the only game in town. But, if we are to believe there is such a think as Enlightenment, or that the Buddha actually “Woke Up” (to something…some Clarity), than we have to accept that there is something outside/beyond of our human mental constructs.
This is not difficult to believe for me to comprehend, as even animals tap into things (abilities) that my mental capacities and senses cannot bring to me, like exaggerated hearing and smelling, etc. Why not something (call it what you will, I call it Spirit for want of a better word), which goes unexplainable in our usual terms, and yet if the sages are to be believed is available to us outside/beyond of (small or egoic) mind.
Perhaps this is why it has been said about it, things like you can ‘Be It,’ but cannot see it directly, or that it is a wholly other experience than what our words tell us. As the Zen Masters say about word explanations, “Do not look at my finger (Aka words) but rather where my finger (words) are pointing…the Unknown is merely unknowable to mind.
It has been said that, “Mind is swimming in Awareness”…and…not the other way around.
O: My other question is about the peace of realization, and may well be linked to the notion of Pure Awareness. This peace now seems like an inherently problematic notion to me, since peace is a concept.
S9: Not just you my friend. The Christian’s refer to this as “The peace beyond understanding.” I don’t think this is just saying “Lot’s of Peace,” but rather a whole other ball of string.
Let us not fall into the idea of labeling peace than gives us a handle on its wholeness. Yes, peace is just a word…but where is it pointing?
O: Conceptualizing is an obstacle to realization.
S9: Only if you think that your concepts are the end of the road. Concepts may actually be one of the foods that feed intention to know for some of us. It was for me. They set us up for contemplation…a jumping off point.
O: Why seek realization?
S9: I too have wondered that very thing, and even thought stopping with my search might be an answer of sorts, until I realized that I could no more stop this “intention to know” that I could give up food or breathing. Even stopping revealed itself to be an effort of sorts.
O: Maybe I have an answer, and would love to get feedback. My answer is:
Emptiness is the true nature of reality.
S9: Or rather emptiness is what we discover within all mental constructs if we dig deep enough. They are like smoke and mirrors with no actual essential self, or substance, much like our nightly dreams. .
O: One result of realization is seeing things as they are, and truth is fundamentally better than not-truth.
S9: Indeed! The “Truth will make us free.” (Free from what, you might well ask. “Free from suffering” is the phrase the Buddha prefers. I think the implications within this are vast. What exactly is suffering? Is what we call pleasure just one more of its faces? As you must admit that, once you have a fleeting pleasure or a joy of some sort, almost immediately we are plagued with the fear and apprehension of its loss?
Everything we gain is inevitably given back. If not now, certainly at our death…
You will leave this earth as naked as you arrived.
O: We're also liberated from suffering. I don't know if there are any further implications of this.
S9: Perhaps the implications are endless? Nature herself is an endless possibility created or manifesting, obviously, within Awareness. Since Awareness itself is not moving or changing, but is more of a Constant Presence…
I want to say that Awareness is outside of time and/or space, thereby beyond the temporary. When have you ever been without awareness even in your dreams?
Awareness is not something that we can grasp either with hand or mind, and yet It is very much alive and fruitful, as Nature bares witness. Please do not think that I am dancing towards a description of some kind of a deity here. I am more speaking of traveling back to our own essential root…
O: …if I'm even on the right track?
S9: I have heard it said that, “It is by intention that we move (on this path), and that the sheer intention is proof of our final arrival. Can you feel this intention percolating in you?
This wish to know is like the magnet that is pulling us home in exact proportion to our wish to know. Many roads made of this one purpose.
So I do not believe there is any wrong tract. Everything teaches.
this is one of the point of reference for concentration meditation (samatha bavana)
this itself can be taken as point of reference for insight meditation (vipassana bavana)
so taking in and out breath as the point of reference how can we turn from concentration meditation to insight meditation?
(oh, made a mistake by posting this, federica or anyone, could you please forward this to meditation forum, thanks in advance)
Comments
The point is that one does not 'remember' to remember. The object is to experience reality as it really is - that the mind is unaffected by relative reality.
The thing with Buddhism is you first have to 'unlearn' what you have previously been taught.
Any technique should focus of the the mind as the object of meditation while allowing thoughts to rise and fall - knowing that all such thoughts are only relative. Your preliminary practices should have convinced you that all thoughts are trigged by the aggregates which are the result of your karmic footprint.
Do you think talking about "reality as it really is" will help the questioner stop projecting and do the practice? It won't. Ontological claims are misguiding.
O: About Pure Awareness: I'm assuming that it's not empty -- is that right?
S9: Pure Awareness is certainly empty of all mental objects, which are contained in every concept that the mind can imagine. But Pure Awareness is not than the object called emptiness or blankness. There is actually no way to say what Pure Awareness is, which the mind will not immediately turn into a mind object, because this is how the limiting mind works. Temporary mind is a verb that continuously creates objects for viewing and understanding. Perhaps this is why Pure Awareness is considered transcendent of mind or ‘not-mental.’
Our mind has us thoroughly convinced (like a hypnosis) that if we cannot see it mentally than it simply doesn’t exist. Mind thinks or is convinced that the mind is the only game in town. But, if we are to believe there is such a think as Enlightenment, or that the Buddha actually “Woke Up” (to something…some Clarity), than we have to accept that there is something outside/beyond of our human mental constructs.
This is not difficult to believe for me to comprehend, as even animals tap into things (abilities) that my mental capacities and senses cannot bring to me, like exaggerated hearing and smelling, etc. Why not something (call it what you will, I call it Spirit for want of a better word), which goes unexplainable in our usual terms, and yet if the sages are to be believed is available to us outside/beyond of (small or egoic) mind.
Perhaps this is why it has been said about it, things like you can ‘Be It,’ but cannot see it directly, or that it is a wholly other experience than what our words tell us. As the Zen Masters say about word explanations, “Do not look at my finger (Aka words) but rather where my finger (words) are pointing…the Unknown is merely unknowable to mind.
It has been said that, “Mind is swimming in Awareness”…and…not the other way around.
O: My other question is about the peace of realization, and may well be linked to the notion of Pure Awareness. This peace now seems like an inherently problematic notion to me, since peace is a concept.
S9: Not just you my friend. The Christian’s refer to this as “The peace beyond understanding.” I don’t think this is just saying “Lot’s of Peace,” but rather a whole other ball of string.
Let us not fall into the idea of labeling peace than gives us a handle on its wholeness. Yes, peace is just a word…but where is it pointing?
O: Conceptualizing is an obstacle to realization.
S9: Only if you think that your concepts are the end of the road. Concepts may actually be one of the foods that feed intention to know for some of us. It was for me. They set us up for contemplation…a jumping off point.
O: Why seek realization?
S9: I too have wondered that very thing, and even thought stopping with my search might be an answer of sorts, until I realized that I could no more stop this “intention to know” that I could give up food or breathing. Even stopping revealed itself to be an effort of sorts.
O: Maybe I have an answer, and would love to get feedback. My answer is:
Emptiness is the true nature of reality.
S9: Or rather emptiness is what we discover within all mental constructs if we dig deep enough. They are like smoke and mirrors with no actual essential self, or substance, much like our nightly dreams. .
O: One result of realization is seeing things as they are, and truth is fundamentally better than not-truth.
S9: Indeed! The “Truth will make us free.” (Free from what, you might well ask. “Free from suffering” is the phrase the Buddha prefers. I think the implications within this are vast. What exactly is suffering? Is what we call pleasure just one more of its faces? As you must admit that, once you have a fleeting pleasure or a joy of some sort, almost immediately we are plagued with the fear and apprehension of its loss?
Everything we gain is inevitably given back. If not now, certainly at our death…
You will leave this earth as naked as you arrived.
O: We're also liberated from suffering. I don't know if there are any further implications of this.
S9: Perhaps the implications are endless? Nature herself is an endless possibility created or manifesting, obviously, within Awareness. Since Awareness itself is not moving or changing, but is more of a Constant Presence…
I want to say that Awareness is outside of time and/or space, thereby beyond the temporary. When have you ever been without awareness even in your dreams?
Awareness is not something that we can grasp either with hand or mind, and yet It is very much alive and fruitful, as Nature bares witness. Please do not think that I am dancing towards a description of some kind of a deity here. I am more speaking of traveling back to our own essential root…
O: …if I'm even on the right track?
S9: I have heard it said that, “It is by intention that we move (on this path), and that the sheer intention is proof of our final arrival. Can you feel this intention percolating in you?
This wish to know is like the magnet that is pulling us home in exact proportion to our wish to know. Many roads made of this one purpose.
So I do not believe there is any wrong tract. Everything teaches.
Peace and love,
S9
this itself can be taken as point of reference for insight meditation (vipassana bavana)
so taking in and out breath as the point of reference how can we turn from concentration meditation to insight meditation?
(oh, made a mistake by posting this, federica or anyone, could you please forward this to meditation forum, thanks in advance)
Thanks so much for your post.
Best,
OD