Knowledge of the absolute
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I was following a discussion on another forum, where various knowledgeable Buddhists were talking about the claim by Advaita Vedanta teachers that we humans are in fact consciousness which is eternal and causes the whole of existence to spring into being.
Ajahn Brahmali says in the discussion: "There is one important point that you did not reply to. I made the point that eternal things can never be known by a human mind, which must always be limited in time and space. All we ever see is transient phenomena. It follows that whenever anyone claims to have seen something eternal, infinite, or beyond time and space, it must be speculation. They are adding something to the raw data of their experience. Even deep states of samādhi, which are some of the most profound experiences available to humanity, are always limited in time. Yet the temptation to see them as eternal is very strong, as can be seen from the history of human thought. So again, when you posit an eternal mind, I say this is mere speculation, metaphysical speculation. It is not something that has a counterpart in experience. This is deeply troubling, for the Buddha was a pragmatist who only taught what he had actually experienced".
My own experience is that everything passes, nothing that can be experienced lasts. So even to know that something is eternal seems difficult. Yet some of the things that Sri Ramana Maharshi says seem to be true on close examination.
What do you think, can we know that something is eternal?
Comments
Within the dream...is there anything that is not hindered by our identity constructs?
Awakened from that dream, what noesis of the eternal is left for the grasping?
Many things are probably simply beyond the human mind to grasp, like a dog trying to understand calculus.
The thought that came to my mind immediately were the first lines of the Tao Te Ching,
"The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name."
What there is, and what its like is no doubt beyond human words and concepts. This is one of the things I appreciate about Nagarjuna's expression of emptiness, its what is called a non affirming negation. It eliminates our conceptual frames without positing an ISness to the absolute.
In the end words can only point the way, its something that only seems available to direct experience. Holding on to notions only act as an obstacle.
At least that's the view that speaks to me, what do I actually know.
It has been said that the only constant is change.
Eternity is a concept we can only apply a theoretical reality to.
It is beyond understanding in other than a theoretical construct.
The life we have is our eternity and our fleeting reality.
It is perhaps pleasant to reflect upon the past and ponder the future, no matter how long that may be.
But the reality of what we know of life is always here, always now.
Thus it is best that we interact with our her and now. But do not fixate upon the here and now. Live, plan, act. But know we are as if upon a rive ever flowing Our goal is upstream, we must navigate this river to continue moving forward. we do not begrudge the ever flowing river. But as we progress up the river, as we stop at each wayside, transient castle to rest and replenish, we become stronger as the joy of the voyage takes us closer to our True Treasure House. Eternity then is tehmoment past and the moment to come. Enjoy.
We can think that there is something eternal - that seems like a reasonable assumption, but it's not the same thing as knowledge. I largely agree with Ajahn Brahmali.
There is an interesting link here with the ‘observer effect’ in quantum mechanics, that when things are observed they behave differently.
Consciousness as a mirror of ‘what is’ seems to be a different quality than all the rest of the phenomenal world. It doesn’t strike me as impossible that it could be eternal.
I'm in the camp of those that say we should trust our experience, whatever others say. Going by an experience now more than a decade ago, I'd tentatively say yes. I wrote about that experience here: https://tatfoundation.org/forum2021-05.htm#4 ("Becoming Conscious of Awareness").
However, these days I don't put much stock into such experiences (or even questions), nor chase them (maybe because I don't have any
. These days I think that a good measure of spiritual maturity (and any experiences experienced) is just a person's daily functioning and level of positive qualities. Going by this measure, as you know, I could definitely improve! 
I don't remember not being here and have yet to taste death so this could be what it feels like to be eternal. Logically speaking though, there must have always been conditions coming together with the potential for this moment to happen.
One thing that stood out to me on the opening paragragh is "the claim by Advaita Vedanta teachers that we humans are in fact consciousness which is eternal and causes the whole of existence to spring into being." If consciousness is eternal then existence is already here and doesn't need to spring into being.
Instead of trying to posit eternity, can we know-see something that is unchanging, not subject to birth and death(arising and passing) aka the deathless?
The five aggregates are impermanent ie. anicca, dukkha, and anatta.
Can one impermanent phenomenon know another impermanent phenomenon?
To see the movement of a train, one has to stand on the platform.
All things are impermanent
when one observes this with insight,
then one becomes detached from suffering;
this is the path of purification.
"This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Nibbana." — AN 3.32
Nibbana is not an experience but the cessation of experience.
Can 'something' that has no form, no shape, no color, and not a thought, a feeling, a memory but be subjected to 'time'?
The universe itself is not eternal!
Eternity is still time-bound, no?
‘There is the Unborn, Uncreated, Unoriginated: If there was not the Unborn, Uncreated, Unoriginated, there would be no escape from the born, the created, the originated.'
Yes indeed, for the Buddha was a pragmatist who only taught what he had actually experienced"
It's a good question. One possibility is that, our everyday, sensory consciousness (vinnana) that we're normally familiar with is conditioned, limited. It's the arising of awareness when a sense organ contacts a sense object, i.e., sights, sounds, tastes, tactile sensations, thoughts (SN 25.4). This form of consciousness arises and ceases according to causes and conditions and is therefore conditioned, inconstant. So how can this congnize something unconditioned and eternal? Perhaps there's an aspect of consciousness that's fundamental, primordial, a consciousness without feature (vinnanam anidassanam) that's obscured by defilements and the process of becoming, and this consciousness isn't so much eternal as it is outside of time and space (MN 49, DN 11, AN 1.49-52).
Our sensory consciousness is similar but instead of being without feature, being tied to or an aspect of mind-body, it lands and grows where there's passion, delight, craving, and wherever it lands, it grows and nurtures its own becoming (SN 12.64). (E.g., think about how a radio receives radio waves). But without that passion, delight, craving, consciousness doesn't land or grow and is in a sense boundless, timeless, like rays of light from the sun that are unobstructed by anything (photons travel at the speed of light and are essentially timeless but not eternal).
And through the practice of the eightfold path, one can reach a point of fulling letting go of what isn't me or mine, reach the cessation of passion, delight, craving, nibbana, where all becoming, all intention and fabrication temporarily ceases, and perhaps at this point sensory consciousness falls away and one is able to touch the deathless and catch a glimpse of consciousness without feature which doesn't land and grow, an experience of pure awareness itself not arising or ceasing, not landing and growing, not bound by becoming or time. It's the point where the conditioned world of our senses ends, revealing that dimension "where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor staying; neither passing away nor arising: unestablished, unevolving, without support [mental object]" (Ud 8.1).
But because we possess this mind-body, the fuel of the results of the stream of past kamma continues (Iti 44), sensory consciousness resumes and obscures this again, although its realization is unshakable and we may rest in it again by the same process of letting go completely, temporarily cessing all intentions and fabrications, until the final dissolution of our mind-body (MN 29). After that, who knows what happens? Of course, this may not be the case, but it's the opinion of some that it's not just the cessation of experience, but the experience of something underlying it or beyond it.
So I was checking out Sujato's forum at Sutta Central and listening to Thanissaro Bhikkhu's latest not-self series at the Sati Center, and ultimately, I agree somewhat with the claim that my views fall somewhere in the 'pure awareness mysticism' camp. I think I came to this from the collected teachings of various religions and the experience of many spiritual teachers, being swayed by the perennialist POV.
I would never say that the respective conceptions of each religious tradition are the same, but I would be so bold as to say their conceptions are reaching towards the same truth or ultimate reality. And I do think that each tradition has their own unique ideas that add to our understanding and hone our experience of this reality. And I think that's ok. And we can find whichever expression fits best for us. It's like the analogy of the finger and moon. Our religious traditions are like the finger, and the moon is truth. We shouldn't cling to the finger itself as the truth, but use it to point us towards it. Nevertheless, the finger is important, and each hand has its own. But the truth, like the moon, is ultimately the same, whether we say it's made of green cheese or mostly silicone and magnesium.
In this case, there are various ideas of what Buddhist awakening entails. Some stress the negative (ending of suffering, cessation of aggregates, the going out of the flames of passion and delight and craving), while others stress the positive (unestablished consciousness, bliss, peace, deathlessness). Some say we wlare just the aggregates, and when we realize nibbana, the aggregates cease without remainder and that's it, whatever 'we' are is gone and we basically experience nothing (much like what modern-day physicalists believe happens). But I think that there is an experience of something timeless or beyond time, but that even this isn't ultimately to be clung to as self. Self has no meaning at this point, although the perception of self can act as a final fetter or obstacle to the full realization on nibbana. We self (as a verb) as skillfully as possible until we get to a point where it is no longer needed and can be dropped, just as the proverbial raft. That's my take, anyway.
I know that my current take it at odds with Buddhism in many ways, and it may not be the case that nibbana/awakening isn't just the cessation of greed, hatred, and delusion and experience, but the experience of something underlying it or beyond it. There are certainly many good objections to this based on teachings in the Pali Canon, and there are numerous ways to answer them. However, I personally think that this POV makes the most sense when viewed from a Spinozan POV if his Substance = consciousness, not unlike in some Mind-only traditions or Brahman in Vedanta.
In his Ethics, Spinoza reasons the underlying unity of existence in a radical way, which isn't something that's easily experienceable or obvious, but which is a perception that can be reasoned and which has effects on how we perceive, experience, and relate to any of the conditioned phenomena we come into contact with, including other beings and our own emotions. I see in his God Nature, or Substance (and much of the Buddha's Dhamma+nibbana) the same concept as Thich Nhat Hanh's interbeing or Paul Tillich's ground of existence due to his arguments about the singularity of the Substance.
Spinoza argues that there's ultimately one Substance, that this Substance is infinite, and that it has infinite attributes. The infinite attributes, as far as I currently understand it, ties into the existence of conditioned phenomena itself and how we can have a causally deterministic world that itself is part of a singular, infinite whole. It's very much like the metaphysics of quantum mechanics and uncertainty and probabilities vs. our level of experiences and observations. And eventually, his reasoning seems to lead to a Buddhist or even Stoic-like psychology and sense of equanimity.
So in my panentheistic reading, if my understanding of Spinoza is accurate:
Substance = self-existing, being/ground of being.
Attributes = the ways intellect perceive Substance, which, while infinite, are limited to 2 knowables in human experience: thought and extension, mind and body. That said, God, Nature, Substance isn't limited to those and can be said to be both immanent and transcendent as well as outside of space and time, the latter of which falling into the realm of attributes and modes/modification (i.e., samsara).
Mode/modification = conditioned phenomena, affected by causes and conditions, modes of Substance that make up the variety of finite things in the universe and what's experienced of it via thought and extension.
Furthermore, if we allow that the fundamental nature of Spinoza's God, Nature, Substance, or whatever else we want to call it doesn't necessarily have to be material but immaterial or neither material nor nonmaterial (a la neutral monism), then his God, Nature, Substance can certainly lead into panentheistic territory (our conditioned world+something beyond it, which we can label the absolute, the transcendent, ultimate reality, etc). And if Substance = consciousness, then it's ultimately just Substance realizing its own nature via its modes/modifications, with various sentient beings having various levels of conscious experience. And whereas Spinoza argues you can reason this ultimate reality/unity, perhaps what the Buddha is suggesting is that you can actually experience it.
Then again, my views may change yet again, but I'm very much swayed by the experience of others and the possibility of touching or experiencing something profound and beyond the range of logical thinking and human language. It may just be wishful thinking on my part and an unconscious aversion to death and nonexistence. But you never know and I think it's worth being open-minded about.
For all the word salads, the only "absolute" is change.
>>> can we know that something is eternal?
Yes.
If, as according to Kagyu teaching, it is real. To be real, it must be unique, unconditioned, and unchanging.
Then we have to find it. Far easier said, than done. A lifetime of practice may not reveal such a thing, but it might.
I don't think any one thing could be eternal but the way of things would have to be. There could never have been a time with no potential conditions for this moment. The potential for this moment simply must have always been.
I am just about to read the book "Enjoying the Ultimate" by Thich Nhat Hanh. Originally published in 2014 in Vietnamese, it has now been translated into English. I've been looking forward to reading it almost as much as "Cracking the Walnut" which is his take on Nagarjunas teachings. It doesn't come out until next week.