so in conclusion buddhism can be summarised as
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What presence? You think there's a ying and yang, or personal perception and nonpersonal perception? Human senses are limited by what they are able to sense accurately but nevertheless life still carries on. So what presense to be felt at all?Originally posted by Thusness:No...not the dharmakaya. Just brought out total transparency because it is a distinct phase and experience along the journey of experiencing no-self. It is just a pointer that one should have this experience and this experience must be stabilized.
Total transparency is NOT about seeing awareness as an invisible, formless, pure, divine and real or experiencing oneself as total life. This can result in wrongly identifying oneself as the Eternal Witness, the Atman.
Total transparency is the true experience of anatta. That apart from the phenomena arising and ceasing, there is no 'self' or 'Self' to be found anywhere. That 'I' and 'Self' completely dissapear. It is not something theoritical or conceptual. It is the truth that has been distorted by dualistic perception. It is a very distinct phase of transiting from dualistic experience of reality into non-dual. In terms of Presence, yes. When the 'self' or 'Self' is gone, deep Presence is felt everywhere.
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You have no experience of Presence. It is something that is totally alien to you.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:What presence? You think there's a ying and yang, or personal perception and nonpersonal perception? Human senses are limited by what they are able to sense accurately but nevertheless life still carries on. So what presense to be felt at all?
You simply cannot comment on anything that you have not experienced before.
I forget to add. Presence will be expereinced immediately after physical death... when the body breaks down and the senses and thoughts dissolves away. But it will be so short-lived that it is practically useless for any useful awakening. -
Originally posted by longchen:
Yes thats right.. Which is why it is important that at death there is someone reading the pointing out instructions to the dying on recognising the clear light as one's true nature and merge with it. Even for one who has recognised/glimpsed it in his lifetime may still need someone to remind him at that time unless one is already totally liberated. By the way did you read the tibetan book of the dead?
You have no experience of Presence. It is something that is totally alien to you.
You simply cannot comment on anything that you have not experienced before.
I forget to add. Presence will be expereinced immediately after [b]physical death... when the body breaks down and the senses and thoughts dissolves away. But it will be so short-lived that it is practically useless for any useful awakening. [/b] -
Hi Isis,Originally posted by Isis:Hi Thusness,
mm what form of practise and cultivation ( sufferings =P ) did you undergo to experience this? hehe
I could say it takes one to walk the path to truly understand what you had said..
and strangely speaking, i couldn't understand what you had said initally but the more i read and re-read over a few times.. it feels familar..
My practice starts after the experience of the deep joy of Presence and there after practice is always in the form of finding more about myself and the experience, i.e, who we really are. Suffering is inevitable in the beginning because our mind is so accustom to think in a dualistic mode. The challenge becomes more intense when we delve deeper till a point that we are completely confused. This is all because we are engaging a wrong approach towards understanding our true nature. Employing our current system of enquiry asking ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ will end us up into experiencing our true nature as Eternal Witness, Soul or God. That is the best the thinking mind can go. This is because the way we cognize is through employing symbols and labels and God, logos is the ultimate symbol. But this is not what our true nature is. To truly experience our boundless, limitness nature, I have come to the conclusion that Buddha's way is the most appropriate way.
If we were to practice mindfulness from start and learn to experience things in bare. We develop this intuitive mode of directly experiencing things as they are. Together with firm understanding of the basic teaching of Buddha, we will be able to break this habitual energy of seeing things in a dualistic mode. Buddha never taught about ‘who’ instead he made Anatta a Dharma Seal; nothing about inherent existence, instead impermanence and oneness. Never about first cause but about Dependent Origination that will eventually lead us into seeing things as unborn, no coming and going. He taught mindfulness as the preferred way of meditation and said that it will lead us into enlightenment. All these can be experienced right here and now. We should take it seriously. It will eliminate a lot of unnecessary sufferings. -
we spoke about tathagatagarba and dharmakaya before in http://buddhisim.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=184819&page=0Originally posted by An Eternal Now:I see.. Thanks again then what about dharmakaya? You mean its a different thing?
Will tok u about transparency after ur exams. -
if i have the spirit of southpark am i enlightened?
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OkOriginally posted by Thusness:we spoke about tathagatagarba and dharmakaya before in http://buddhisim.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=184819&page=0
Will tok u about transparency after ur exams. -
What you talking about? Anyway southpark is fiction whatOriginally posted by Cenarious:if i have the spirit of southpark am i enlightened? -
ic...Originally posted by Thusness:Hi Isis,
My practice starts after the experience of the deep joy of Presence and there after practice is always in the form of finding more about myself and the experience, i.e, who we really are. Suffering is inevitable in the beginning because our mind is so accustom to think in a dualistic mode. The challenge becomes more intense when we delve deeper till a point that we are completely confused. This is all because we are engaging a wrong approach towards understanding our true nature. Employing our current system of enquiry asking ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ will end us up into experiencing our true nature as Eternal Witness, Soul or God. That is the best the thinking mind can go. This is because the way we cognize is through employing symbols and labels and God, logos is the ultimate symbol. But this is not what our true nature is. To truly experience our boundless, limitness nature, I have come to the conclusion that Buddha's way is the most appropriate way.
If we were to practice mindfulness from start and learn to experience things in bare. We develop this intuitive mode of directly experiencing things as they are. Together with firm understanding of the basic teaching of Buddha, we will be able to break this habitual energy of seeing things in a dualistic mode. Buddha never taught about ‘who’ instead he made Anatta a Dharma Seal; nothing about inherent existence, instead impermanence and oneness. Never about first cause but about Dependent Origination that will eventually lead us into seeing things as unborn, no coming and going. He taught mindfulness as the preferred way of meditation and said that it will lead us into enlightenment. All these can be experienced right here and now. We should take it seriously. It will eliminate a lot of unnecessary sufferings.
Frankly speaking, my mind and emotion was rather unsettled after reading this thread since yesterday... quite confounded with your description of the pristine buddha nature... as it is not within the grasp of my intellectual understanding, experience and the wisdom to comprehend it yet.
Do you think... As i process your information, my mind is in a form dualistic mode? as im trying to understand it..
i feel familar cos it seem possibly real...
Im confused with what i had already know and had just known.. Perhpas the best way is by starting to practising and slowly understand it...
Guess i have to start practising mindfulness from here onwards on... first..
Thank for the replying -
Like what Longchen said,Originally posted by Isis:ic...
Frankly speaking, my mind and emotion was rather unsettled after reading this thread since yesterday... quite confounded with your description of the pristine buddha nature... as it is not within the grasp of my intellectual understanding, experience and the wisdom to comprehend it yet.
Do you think... As i process your information, my mind is in a form dualistic mode? as im trying to understand it..
i feel familar cos it seem possibly real...
Im confused with what i had already know and had just known.. Perhpas the best way is by starting to practising and slowly understand it...
Guess i have to start practising mindfulness from here onwards on... first..
Thank for the replying
"The spiritual path may be the most demanding and difficult project that one can ever undertake.
Never underestimate the extreme subtleness... "
Challenging the limits of our thinking mechanism is quite an achievement.
Be patient and good luck. -
Yes..how true.Sadly this is the flaw in human logic thinking. For example if one take a look at God based religions all have similar concepts like concept of god, soul theory, eternal hell or eternal heaven. All this concept are produced by such dualistic thinking mode.Originally posted by Thusness:Hi Isis,
My practice starts after the experience of the deep joy of Presence and there after practice is always in the form of finding more about myself and the experience, i.e, who we really are. Suffering is inevitable in the beginning because our mind is so accustom to think in a dualistic mode. The challenge becomes more intense when we delve deeper till a point that we are completely confused. This is all because we are engaging a wrong approach towards understanding our true nature. Employing our current system of enquiry asking ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ will end us up into experiencing our true nature as Eternal Witness, Soul or God That is the best the thinking mind can go. This is because the way we cognize is through employing symbols and labels and God, logos is the ultimate symbol. But this is not what our true nature is. To truly experience our boundless, limitness nature, I have come to the conclusion that Buddha's way is the most appropriate way..
If we were to practice mindfulness from start and learn to experience things in bare. We develop this intuitive mode of directly experiencing things as they are. Together with firm understanding of the basic teaching of Buddha, we will be able to break this habitual energy of seeing things in a dualistic mode. Buddha never taught about ‘who’ instead he made Anatta a Dharma Seal; nothing about inherent existence, instead impermanence and oneness. Never about first cause but about Dependent Origination that will eventually lead us into seeing things as unborn, no coming and going. He taught mindfulness as the preferred way of meditation and said that it will lead us into enlightenment. All these can be experienced right here and now. We should take it seriously. It will eliminate a lot of unnecessary sufferings. -
The World Without Logos
Don't be cool vibration
Revlofantasy
Tell me fool talk show day and rain
Every stardom the rating
Don't stop horror show inner darken
Jus suc ra ra oh
Oh no harbor won't you buy valley show
Take me want to talking revolution
No havea won cheese have lay show
(No have a want cha have late show)
Diviphon de have worry star
Shooby dooby doo shooby dooby doo durul
Shooby dooby doo shooby dooby doo durul
Devil beam to the crashing
Revoluflymachine
Adjust blue G
Jus sekiran
Oh no harbor won't you buy valley show
Take me want to talking revolution
No havea won cheese have lay show
Diviphon de have worry star
Shooby dooby doo shooby dooby doo durul
Shooby dooby doo shooby dooby doo durul -
means everything is not real and nothing matters because it will be gone if u lose ur memory and it is just entertainment dont care about how things happen even if they are ridiculous just experience the funnyness of it cos u just want the funny dont u, those that complain why this and that is possible are just bringing headaches to themselves because southpark is made to be funny and they will do anything to be funny even ridiculous things, if u find it funny then good but if not then too bad for u cos i dont know what ur thinking but most probably cos ur stupid so maybe u can go find ur own humour then, the ridiculousness makes it more funny in fact but they dont abuse it to make it seem like theyr trying to hardOriginally posted by An Eternal Now:What you talking about? Anyway southpark is fiction what
southpark reminds me of my pri sch best friend we thought only we had the good humour and everyone elses humour were just dumb, oh god i was so happy back then when school was easy or was it because i did my homework religiously everyday cos the teachers were fierce -
Indeed.Originally posted by neutral_onliner:Yes..how true.Sadly this is the flaw in human logic thinking. For example if one take a look at God based religions all have similar concepts like concept of god, soul theory, eternal hell or eternal heaven. All this concept are produced by such dualistic thinking mode.
To think is to dig into our memory bank for similar experiences. It is to categorize, associate and relate from a known pool of data. Asking what is anything is similar to asking what and which group it belongs to. To know is to infer, deduce, measure and compare. We got so attached to this mechanistic mode of knowing that we are hypnotized to believe that reality is in accordance to this pattern. But this is just merely a system of enquiry created by the mind to make sense of the universe. It is not the only way towards knowledge. When we attempt to understanding our own true nature, we are lost. Such mode of enquiry cannot cope with the dynamics, timelessness and boundless characteristic of our nature. When we examine mindfulness, we will realise that it is a technique that has the quality to deal with these characteristics. It is pointless to do nothing and complain and yet want to understand the mystery of life. There truly exist a way towards unlocking this mystery of life. The Blessed One is compasionate, he has shown us the way. To quench the thirst, we have to be sincere with our practice and experience it ourselves. -
Originally posted by Thusness:
Dun mind...had highlighted some important point
Indeed.
To think is to dig into our memory bank for similar experiences. It is to categorize, associate and relate from a known pool of data. Asking what is anything is similar to asking what and which group it belongs to. To know is to infer, deduce, measure and compare. We got so attached to this mechanistic mode of knowing that we are hypnotized to believe that reality is in accordance to this pattern. But this is just merely a system of enquiry created by the mind to make sense of the universe. It is not the only way towards knowledge. When we attempt to understanding our own true nature, we are lost. Such mode of enquiry cannot cope with the dynamics, timelessness and boundless characteristic of our nature. When we examine mindfulness, we will realise that it is a technique that has the quality to deal with these characteristics. It is pointless to do nothing and complain and yet want to understand the mystery of life. There truly exist a way towards unlocking this mystery of life. The Blessed One is compasionate, he has shown us the way. To quench the thirst, we have to be sincere with our practice and experience it ourselves.
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Then what do you describe as reincarnation or rebirth? Isn't it a state where someone starts life without any possible spiritual influence but genetic influence?Originally posted by neutral_onliner:Nope.Buddha reject the theory of souls.Of all religions and philosophies in the world, only two,reject the theory of soul.One is Buddhism and the other is the world view of modern science. -
It means human senses are relative, not the human mind.Originally posted by sinweiy:some "abstruct" illusions there.
/\ -
Rebirth can be quite wide. Let's say your father is expert at business, and under his guidance you have the expertise in business. Then your father is in a way, reborn as a different form - as 'you'.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:Then what do you describe as reincarnation or rebirth? Isn't it a state where someone starts life without any possible spiritual influence but genetic influence?
In Buddhism, consciousness is ever changing, and like energy it is can neither be destroyed nor created, but rather is ever changing in different forms. Similarly consciousness is not annihilated at death, neither is it eternal, it reborns as a different form. There is no 'soul', no 'self' that is undergoing reincarnation. At a deeper level, every moment we are reborn... because our thoughts are like a continuous chain, one leading to the next. If we can glimpse the reality that there never was a self, we will put an end to rebirth, put an end to that chain, even if it were only for a brief moment. It is a glimpse of Nirvana.
Actually I don't really mean to put an end to all changes... things continue to change in the world, that is reality. There is only this ever-changingness. Here is a very good article by Ajahn Brahmavamso on No-Self:http://www.bswa.org/modules/icontent/index.php?page=49
...When philosophy books talk about 'self reflection' or 'self knowledge', the fact that not only do "I know", but that "I know that I know", or that "I know that I know that I know", is given as a proof of the existence of a self. I have looked into that experience, in order to see what actually was going on with this 'knowing' business. Using the depth of my meditation, with the precision that that gave to mindfulness, to awareness, I could see the way this mind was actually working. What one actually sees is this procession of events, that which we call 'knowing'. It's like a procession, just one thing arising after the other in time. When I saw something, then a fraction of a moment afterwards I knew that I saw, and then a fraction of a moment afterwards I knew that I knew that I saw. There is no such thing as, "I know that I know that I know". The truth of the matter is, "I know that I knew that I knew". When one adds the perspective of time, one can see the causal sequence of moments of consciousness. Not seeing that causal sequence can very easily give rise to the illusion of a continuous 'knower'. This illusion of a continuous 'knower' is most often where people assume that their 'self' resides.
However, as it says in the suttas, one can see that even knowing is conditioned (sankhata) (MN 64). One can see that this too rises because of causes, and then ceases when the causes cease. This is actually where one starts to see through the illusion of objectivity. It is impossible to separate the 'knower' from the known....
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'Knowing' is like the particles of sand on a beach. From a distance it looks like there is no gap, no space, between those grains of sand. Then one goes closer and closer and closer and sees that there are just grains of sand, and in between those grains there is nothing. Nothing runs through those grains of sand. Like water in a stream. It looks like there is a continuous flow. However, once one gets closer with a microscope, an electron microscope, one can see that between the water molecules there is nothing, just space. One can then see the granular nature of consciousness. One consciousness arises and then another disappears. As it says in the Satipatthana Samyutta, "cittas arise and pass away" (SN 47, 42)."The life of a sentient being is a long dream. Existence only appears to be real. When one finally awakens, or attains Buddhahood, existence is seen for what it is--a sequence of illusions. Until that time, people will remain obsessed by the body, mind, and external phenomena, not realizing that they are illusory. You will live in a dream, thinking that it is reality. . . .
Just for sharing, some J Krishnamurti's quotes that arrived in my mail in the past 2 days:
"Sentient beings mistakenly view their moment-to-moment illusory existence as a continuous, connected lifetime. Because they are unaware that their life is unreal, they do not attempt to wake up."
--ChÂ’an Master Sheng-yen, Complete Enlightenment, pp. 108-109
=== JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===
In Death Is Immortality
Surely, in ending there is renewal, is there not? It's only in death that a new thing comes into being. I am not giving you comfort. This is not something to be believed or thought about or intellectually examined and accepted, for then you will make it into another comfort, as you now believe in reincarnation or continuity in the hereafter, and so on. But the actual fact is that that which continues has no rebirth, no renewal. Therefore, in dying every day there is renewal, there is a rebirth. That is immortality. In death there is immortality - not the death of which you are afraid, but the death of previous conclusions, memories, experiences, with which you are identified as the “me.â€� In the dying of the “meâ€� every minute there is eternity, there is immortality, there is a thing to be experienced - not to be speculated upon or lectured about, as you do about reincarnation and all that kind of stuff.... When you are no longer afraid, because every minute there is an ending and therefore a renewal, then you are open to the unknown. Reality is the unknown. Death is also the unknown. But to call death beautiful, to say how marvelous it is because we shall continue in the hereafter and all that nonsense, has no reality. What has reality is seeing death as it is - an ending; an ending in which there is renewal, a rebirth, not a continuity. For that which continues decays; and that which has the power to renew itself is eternal. The Book of Life - November 16
=== JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote ===
Reincarnation Is Essentially Egotistic
You want me to give you an assurance that you will live another life, but in that there is no happiness or wisdom. The search for immortality through reincarnation is essentially egotistic, and therefore not true. Your search for immortality is only another form of the desire for the continuance of self-defensive reactions against life and intelligence. Such a craving can only lead to illusion. So what matters is not whether there is reincarnation, but to realize complete fulfillment in the present. And you can do that only when your mind and heart are no longer protecting themselves against life. The mind is cunning and subtle in its self-defense, and it must discern for itself the illusory nature of self-protection. This means that you must think and act completely anew. You must liberate yourself from the net of false values which environment has imposed upon you. There must be utter nakedness. Then there is immortality, reality. The Book of Life - November 17 -
Sense perceptions are actually as it is, human interpretations are relative, because it is based on the thought relating something with another. I do not mean objectively real, objectivity arises only in mind's analysis of sense perceptions like what Longchen's post mentioned. As for 'human mind', do define what you mean by that.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:It means human senses are relative, not the human mind.
(longchen's original post below)Originally posted by longchen:Thanks for the sharing.... 'I am' currently embarking onto a new stage... and this article seems to correlates.
'I am' now, at times, seeing how mind cognate and sees 'things' and 'individual'. This is an unconscious gripping habit that forms concepts from perceptions that are derive from the other streams that forms the sensory data... all of which are 'streams' of cause and effects.
For, in truth, there are no things and no individuals. Just as there is no 'you' as a self, there are no others as 'self' too. It is the amazing cogniting functions of mind that 'illusionate' and conceptualises perceptions into things, environment and individuals.
In truth, there is only one Universal Mind...and 'beyond/without' the cognition of mind that is no 'purpose'. ' Purpose' or meaning are all conceptualised at the cognitive level... that is why... the deeper state of nature cannot be known through discussion and arguing... because all these activities are operating at the conceptual and cognitive level.
Just my opinion...please read with discernment... thanks. -
Yes... the whole human life is like a game or a 'lila'. It reminds me of this passage (the terms he used aren't really Buddhist but I feel this passage is relevant here):Originally posted by longchen:You play computer game?
We know the computer game is just a game. But when we are playing we try to better the opponent and survive. When you are playing the game... the game is so exciting and real and you try your very best to survive.... the game has a lot of meaning for you. If you don't understand the game... you watch the game and you do not feel anything at all...
understand? http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/pathwa_titoat.cfm/
Pathways: Why does Spirit bother to manifest at all, especially when that manifestation is necessarily painful and requires that It become amnesiac to Its true identity? Why does God incarnate?
Ken Wilber: Oh, I see youÂ’re starting with the easy questions. Well, IÂ’ll give you a few theoretical answers that have been offered over the years, and then IÂ’ll give you my personal experience, such as it is.
I have actually asked this same question of several spiritual teachers, and one of them gave a quick, classic answer: “It’s no fun having dinner alone.”
ThatÂ’s sort of flip or flippant, I suppose, but the more you think about it, the more it starts to make sense. What if, just for the fun of it, we pretend -- you and I blasphemously pretend, just for a moment -- that we are Spirit, that Tat Tvam Asi? Why would you, if you were God Almighty, why would you manifest a world? A world that, as you say, is necessarily one of separation and turmoil and pain? Why would you, as the One, ever give rise to the Many?
Pathways: ItÂ’s no fun having dinner alone?
Ken Wilber: DoesnÂ’t that start to make sense? Here you are, the One and Only, the Alone and the Infinite. What are you going to do next? You bathe in your own glory for all eternity, you bask in your own delight for ages upon ages, and then what? Sooner or later, you might decide that it would be fun -- just fun -- to pretend that you were not you. I mean, what else are you going to do? What else can you do?
Pathways: Manifest a world.
Ken Wilber: DonÂ’t you think? But then it starts to get interesting. When I was a child, I used to try to play checkers with myself. You ever tried that?
Pathways: Yes, I remember doing something like that.
Ken Wilber: Does it work?
Pathways: Not exactly, because I always knew what my “opponent’s” move was going to be. I was playing both sides, so I couldn’t “surprise” myself. I always knew what I was going to do on both sides, so it wasn’t much of a game. You need somebody “else” to play the game.
Ken Wilber: Yes, exactly, that’s the problem. You need an “other.” So if you are the only Being in all existence, and you want to play -- you want to play any sort of game -- you have to take the role of the other, and then forget that you are playing both sides. Otherwise the game is no fun, as you say. You have to pretend you are the other player with such conviction that you forget that you are playing all the roles. If you don’t forget, then you got no game, it’s just no fun.
Pathways: So if you want to play -- I think the Eastern term is lila -- then you have to forget who you are. Amnesis.
Ken Wilber: Yes, I think so. And that is exactly the core of the answer given by the mystics the world over. If you are the One, and -- out of sheer exuberance, plenitude, superabundance -- you want to play, to rejoice, to have fun, then you must first, manifest the Many, and then second, forget it is you who are the Many. Otherwise, no game. Manifestation, incarnation, is the great Game of the One playing at being the Many, for the sheer sport and fun of it.
Pathways: But itÂ’s not always fun.
Ken Wilber: Well, yes and no. The manifest world is a world of opposites -- of pleasure versus pain, up versus down, good versus evil, subject versus object, light versus shadow. But if you are going to play the great cosmic Game, that is what you yourself set into motion. How else can you do it? If there are no parts and no players and no suffering and no Many, then you simply remain as the One and Only, Alone and Aloof. But itÂ’s no fun having dinner alone.
Pathways: So to start the game of manifestation is start the world of suffering.
Ken Wilber: It starts to look like that, doesn’t it? And the mystics seem to agree. But there is a way out of that suffering, a way to be free of the opposites, and that involves the overwhelming and direct realization that Spirit is not good versus evil, or pleasure versus pain, or light versus dark, or life versus death, or whole versus part, or holistic versus analytic. Spirit is the great Player that gives rise to all those opposites equally -- “I the Lord make the Light to fall on the good and the bad alike; I the Lord do all these things” -- and the mystics the world over agree. Spirit is not the good half of the opposites, but the ground of all the opposites, and our “salvation,” as it were, is not to find the good half of the dualism but to find the Source of both halves of the dualism, for that is what we are in truth. We are both sides in the great Game of Life, because we -- you and I, in the deepest recesses of our very Self -- have created both of these opposites in order to have a grand game of cosmic checkers.
That, anyway, is the “theoretical” answer that the mystics almost always give. “Nonduality” means, as the Upanishads put it, “to be freed of the pairs.” That is, the great liberation consists in being freed of the pairs of opposites, freed of duality -- and finding instead the nondual One Taste that gives rise to both. This is liberation because we cease the impossible, painful dream of spending our entire lives trying to find an up without a down, an inside without an outside, a good without an evil, a pleasure without its inevitable pain.
Pathways: You said that you had a more personal response as well.
Ken Wilber: Yes, such as it is. When I first experienced, however haltingly, “nirvikalpa samadhi” -- which means, meditative absorption in the formless One -- I remember having the vague feeling -- very subtle, very faint -- that I didn’t want to be alone in this wonderful expanse. I remember feeling, very diffusely but very insistently, that I wanted to share this with somebody. So what would one do in that state of loneliness?
Pathways: Manifest the world.
Ken Wilber: ThatÂ’s how it seems to me. And I knew, however amateurishly, that if I came out of that formless Oneness and recognized the world of the Many, that I would then suffer, because the Many always hurt each other, as well as help each other. And you know what? I was glad to surrender the peace of the One even though it meant the pain of the Many. Now this is just a little tongue taste of what the great mystics have seen, but my limited experience seems to conform to their great pronouncement: You are the One freely giving rise to the Many -- to pain and pleasure and all the opposites -- because you choose not to abide as the exquisite loneliness of Infinity, and because you donÂ’t want to have dinner alone.
Pathways: And the pain that is involved?
Ken Wilber: Is freely chosen as part of the necessary Game of Life. You cannot have a manifest world without all the opposites of pleasure and pain. And to get rid of the pain -- the sin, the suffering, the duhkha -- you must remember who and what you really are. This remembrance, this recollection, this anamnesis -- “Do this in Remembrance of Me” -- means, “Do this in Remembrance of the Self that You Are” -- Tat Tvam Asi. The great mystical religions the world over consist of a series of profound practices to quiet the small self that we pretend we are -- which causes the pain and suffering that you feel -- and awaken as the Great Self that is our own true ground and goal and destiny -- “Let this consciousness be in you which was in Christ Jesus.” -
(continued)
Pathways: Is this realization an all-or-nothing affair?
Ken Wilber: Not usually. ItÂ’s often a series of glimpses of One Taste -- glimpses of the fact that you are one with absolutely all manifestation, in its good and bad aspects, in all its frost and fever, its wonder and its pain. You are the Kosmos, literally. But you tend to understand this ultimate fact in increasing glimpses of the infinity that you are, and you realize exactly why you started this wonderful, horrible Game of Life. But it is absolutely not a cruel Game, not ultimately, because you, and you alone, instigated this Drama, this Lila, this Kenosis.
Pathways: But what about the notion that these experiences of “One Taste” or “Kosmic Consciousness” are just a by-product of meditation, and therefore aren’t “really real”?
Ken Wilber: Well, that can be said of any type of knowledge that depends on an instrument. “Kosmic consciousness” often depends on the instrument of meditation. So what? Seeing the nucleus of a cell depends on a microscope. Do we then say that the cell nucleus isn’t real because it’s only a by-product of a microscope? Do we say the moons of Jupiter aren’t real because they depend on a telescope? The people who raise this objection are almost always people who don’t want to look through the instrument of meditation, just as the Churchmen refused to look through Galileo’s telescope and thus acknowledge the moons of Jupiter. Let them live with their refusal. But let us -- to the best of our ability, and hopefully driven by the best of charity or compassion -- try to convince them to look, just once, and see for themselves. Not coerce them, just invite them. I suspect a different world might open for them, a world that has been abundantly verified by all who look through the telescope, and microscope, of meditation.
Pathways: Could you tell us....
Ken Wilber: If I could interrupt, do you mind if I give you one of my favorite quotes from Aldous Huxley?
Pathways: Please.
Ken Wilber: This is from After Many a Summer Dies the Swan:
“I like the words I use to bear some relation to facts. That’s why I’m interested in eternity -- psychological eternity. Because it’s a fact.”
“For you perhaps,” said Jeremy.
“For anyone who chooses to fulfill the conditions under which it can be experienced.”
“And why should anyone wish to fulfill them?”
“Why should anyone choose to go to Athens to see the Parthenon? Because it’s worth the bother. And the same is true of eternity. The experience of timeless good is worth all the trouble it involved.”
“Timeless good,” Jeremy repeated with distaste. “I don’t know what the words mean.”
“Why should you?” said Mr. Propter. “You’ve never bought your ticket for Athens.”
Pathways: So contemplation is the ticket to Athens?
Ken Wilber: DonÂ’t you think? -
Followers of Ken Wilbur will find it hard to swallow...but then I must still say...
He honour too much of stage 5. Though non-duality is experienced, it is not thorough. He sank back to a source and ding dong in between. Is there Witness without conditions? Are there moments of manifestation without conditions where Witness is experienced? If there is, then it is a game. If not, then know the truth of Dependent Origination. There is a stage 6. The nature of Presence is empty. -
I see..Originally posted by Thusness:Followers of Ken Wilbur will find it hard to swallow...but then I must still say...
He honour too much of stage 5. Though non-duality is experienced, it is not thorough. He sank back to a source and ding dong in between. Is there Witness without conditions? Are there moments of manifestation without conditions where Witness is experienced? If there is, then it is a game. If not, then know the truth of Dependent Origination. There is a stage 6. The nature of Presence is empty. -
how do i get on track to stage 1 (whats stage 1)