Meditation, chanting and Eternal Now View

Herzog_Zwei

13 Sep 09, 23:58

Originally posted by Weychin:

Herzog, your point being? Can you put it in context?

Asking for the impossible lah:NPOV.

Sgforumposter

14 Sep 09, 19:48

Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:

But unfortunately, one has to be crippled in all senses to be unable to impose any idea, concept , characteristics upon the world.

We are now venturing into an area known as epistemiology. It is a mouthful. The materialist or objectivist argued that the world cannot be known apart from our concepts and ideas which are formulated through our sense base. ALL our knowledge are based on our 5 senses. Even highly abstracted notion will sooner or later reduced to something that we could put a finger on and that is our sense base.

However quite a few eastern religion had a different view. One story that hindus like to use is the story of 2 persons living in the jungle. One is blind and deaf but could walk about. The other could see and hear but was dumb and a paraplegic and barely could move but slightly. The person could see know that the blind man is around but the blind and deaf man doesn't know that the other person was around. The blind and deaf tended to make a lot of noise, scolding, and shouting most of the time to reassured itself that it is alive.

One day there was a forest fire and the one with sight and hearing called out to the one who was blind and deaf. No matter how he gesticulated the blind and deaf could not respond.

Both eventually died and reborned in samsara.

Our rationale, our thinking faculty, our logic and reasoning are the blind and deaf man. It tended to be noisy and self assured of its "reality". While the intuitive self really know what is around us but could not speak and is often very silent.

While our heart, the intuitive and insightful part of our being "knows" it seldom expresses itself. Our logic and reasons, while blind, are often very assertive.

Do you know why it is well known by scientists that "science is blind" ?

I understand that harvard business school is now encouraging meditation as they had found from their research that top business leaders could make very good and profound decision because they often have very good insight and invariably these are the ones that meditated.

Insights and intuition is a whole new field of experience and investigation and to reject it would be basically thinking with half a brain. Why not give it a go. You have nothing to lose except your delusions.

Sgforumposter

14 Sep 09, 23:13

I really don't know where to begin. "In the multitude of words there is delusion" said a wise person. Let then clarify some key points rather than to go through point by point.

_Direct Perception_

"Thusness reply to djhampa :

As Thusness wrote to djhampa last time:

Hi djhampa,

Diect experience does not imply consciousness being detached from whatever arises. Experiences are "direct" because the common misunderstanding of an agent that can be attached or detached from whatever arises is thoroughly seen through; thefore nothing to divide to begin with, thus, direct. That is why it is an "insight" and it is this arising of anatta insight that leads a practitioner to direct seeing. Even the complete cessation of thoughts or perceptions do not make experience direct without the arising of this anatta insight.

--------------------

I believe that was a misrepresentation of what djhampa said or understand.

The false self as represented in the skandhic model could be lumped under "mental factor" which consisted of feelings, perceptions and mental formation. The sense of false self and all that emanates from it and also how we see and interpret the world arise essentially from the "mental factor". The detachment of the consciousness skandha from contact and mental factors does not imply cessation of thoughts or perceptions. Looking at the model as derived from MN109 there are still two arrows (the red and green-to the left) that flows into vinnana. The red arrows allow us to watch our feelings(pleasant, unpleasant and neutral), perception and mental formation with detachment without having to engage all that arises - our delusions.

The green arrow demonstrated an ability of Buddhas and arahants of directly knowing - beyond words, concepts and ideas - what went on in the environment. This often come complete and not linearised as it would be required of any conceptual interpretation.

Insights can only arise when there is little or no engagement with our mental factors.

So thusness was wrong in believing that detachment implies separation. However detachment does imply the dissolution of false self where the sense of separation exist.

Notice also the arrow indicated by Bgh A ? That arrow had 6 elements. Which of these we wish to detach from Phassa is within the practitioner's ability when he had comfortably withdrawn from the world. Again withdrawal from the world does not imply a cut off from the world but a highly developed sensitivity to the world , a merging with reality. This is again indicated by both the red and green arrow.

Becareful of canned phraseology that often doesn't mean much nor have any value.

_Your diagram_

The diagram you presented has one vital element missing. The very element that allowed for a neurotic attachment to cravings. Our cravings are part of the mental factors which actually fed back onto phassa or contact. This give rise to feelings etc. It is this obsession with pleasantries that is the basis of cravings. Cravings cannot be stopped but we can develop our ability to detach from our conscious engagement with phassa. I had often use a tree for this example. When the image of a tree came into our eye, we could choose not to engage with it. No thoughts, feelings, idea or associated ideas etc. will develop when we successfully disengaged from the sense input.

_Notional no-self_

You like to use the phrase seeing without seer, hearing without hearer etc. Do you really understand what this meant or imply ? Where does this "seeing" and "hearing" happening when false self is dissolved ? Is our physical eye and ear involved ?

_Vipassana as Buddha taught it__

A naughty grin just went across my face ;-)

This was what you wrote :

I was just writing yesterday at another forum, that Vipassana is not a form of dissociative witnessing (though some might practice this way, but I'm talking about the way the Buddha taught it) such that by observing impermanent sensations one then lets go of the 'not selves' and discovers a true self as an eternal observer.

Was this what was taught in satipathana sutta ? If not all these are really a sophisticated means of wrapping - pardon my words - cow dung ;-) and it just smelt as bad. Oh no I am not been confrontational but do you really believe or understood or even know what it entailed in some of the things you wrote ?

Satipathana sutta (or please don't dump a whole load of other material on 4 foundation of mindfullness) is a masterpiece work by Buddha. Few hundred years after this was published very few people really knew how to practice insight meditation and as a result many started adding a lot of "other stuff". In the beginning many monks in thailand went crazy and when it got to sri lanka it was modified. The system of practice we have today either from sri lanka, myanmar or thailand is nothing like what Buddha talked about in satipathana sutta. We have to also understand that satipathana sutta is NOT a manual for practice. It is couched in words that pointed at the practice and not the practice itself. It is like a teaser. We are presented with glimpses of what to expect and if you haven't reach a particular stage such glimpses will escape you.

What does "body in body" meant ? To you it meant that there is no observer. Again where is this observer to begin with ? You may then reply no where, like what a lot of zen master taught or used but this sense of self or being an observer must arise from somewhere. We know that this sense of self is false but where does it arise within our being ?

To understand what Buddha meant by body in body, feelings in feelings etc. When we sit in a particular posture we know that we are sitting and as soon as it becomes uncomfortable we feel pain. Before long we started thinking why don't I shift or perhaps you would tell yourself that my teacher taught me to grit my teeth and bear with it - the pain is only our delusions etc. When enough thoughts on the pain had arised a kind of sadness, silliness or anger arise. Now what I have just described are the things that went on within our mental factor. One stage became the cause and condition for the next stage to arise.

If we have a pleasant or unpleasant feelings and there is no associated thoughts or interpretation etc. then these feelings are then within feelings. If we tell ourselves "now that is delicious" then the feeling is in perception. The literal "stopping" of the flow can only come about if we stop engaging with what flowed into our consciousness. In this case mostly from the red arrow. Similarly for body posture. Most of the postures recommended by Buddha in the body mindfulness such as standing, walking, sleeping and sitting will "trigger" neutral feelings and it would be good practice for us to "know" body in body. It is a good and healthy way to condition and train the consciousness.

We could similarly use eye or hearing (very difficult) in this practice. We will "know" that "eye in eye" . Eye being the eye sensation.

So what has false self got to do with all these ? Nothing and that's what we want to train and conditioned our mind.

I think this is getting very long-lah... I will talk about subject-object dichotomy maybe in a day or two.

Weychin

15 Sep 09, 00:38

To Sgforumposter, first I apologies for unable put my thoughts or questions into context, as I has am poor with texting. It like learning photography, remember one thing forget the next.

Now to my question proper, I hope you heard about sleep paralysis. One suddenly "awakes" in his sleeps finds himself unable to move. In this dream state, he is "aware" of himself in his surrounding where he has sleep. Thus restrained he goes in a panic state. Now I has managed to wake up by concentrating on breathing, and forcefully breathing myself awake.

Now the crux of the matter is that when from the moment we are born, we start breathing. And as we breathe our last breath, we die. Our breath is sole clinging to this very existence and assuming we have the lucidity to realise we are no longer breathing. Where do you put focus conciousness?!!

We can eludcidate for all we want, but can you lower your knowledge to the mundane where ordinary people like me living a day a time can benefit?

I am what I am, if you can relate to my experience, hopefully, even manage to teach someone like me to effectively apply your wisdom on a day to day basis. If it pleases you you can call me full of shit or load of crap so that I am be able to learn from you, please do so!

Herzog_Zwei

15 Sep 09, 12:42

Originally posted by Sgforumposter:

We are now venturing into an area known as epistemiology. It is a mouthful. The materialist or objectivist argued that the world cannot be known apart from our concepts and ideas which are formulated through our sense base. ALL our knowledge are based on our 5 senses. Even highly abstracted notion will sooner or later reduced to something that we could put a finger on and that is our sense base.

However quite a few eastern religion had a different view. One story that hindus like to use is the story of 2 persons living in the jungle. One is blind and deaf but could walk about. The other could see and hear but was dumb and a paraplegic and barely could move but slightly. The person could see know that the blind man is around but the blind and deaf man doesn't know that the other person was around. The blind and deaf tended to make a lot of noise, scolding, and shouting most of the time to reassured itself that it is alive.

One day there was a forest fire and the one with sight and hearing called out to the one who was blind and deaf. No matter how he gesticulated the blind and deaf could not respond.

Both eventually died and reborned in samsara.

Our rationale, our thinking faculty, our logic and reasoning are the blind and deaf man. It tended to be noisy and self assured of its "reality". While the intuitive self really know what is around us but could not speak and is often very silent.

While our heart, the intuitive and insightful part of our being "knows" it seldom expresses itself. Our logic and reasons, while blind, are often very assertive.

Do you know why it is well known by scientists that "science is blind" ?

I understand that harvard business school is now encouraging meditation as they had found from their research that top business leaders could make very good and profound decision because they often have very good insight and invariably these are the ones that meditated.

Insights and intuition is a whole new field of experience and investigation and to reject it would be basically thinking with half a brain. Why not give it a go. You have nothing to lose except your delusions.

We could lose the one thing we could ill-afford to lose: our sanity.

An Eternal Now

15 Sep 09, 19:18

I hope nobody will bother wasting time and effort to reply to Herzog's insanity here. Please remember off topic posts will be removed, and keep posts practical, constructive and within the range of reason. I will be restricting pointless arguments. No point wasting time on people who are not interested in learning or practicing Buddhism and making bad karma by expressing all sorts of negativities about dharma.

-------------
To Sgforumposter:

Yes, pretty long (can't blame you for that because I also have that habit of writing long posts) and I also don't know where to begin. Anyway I am curious, do you have a particular inclination towards a particular tradition of Buddhism or are you a non-sectarian?

As to your post: I am not disagreeing that when we practice bare attention, vipassana, we are not engaging with contents, mental perception or formations or volition -- just bare sensate reality. In fact I have reiterated this a few times in my previous posts. However not engaging in the contents and stories of thought, the 'me' story, does not mean we become disassociated with our senses -- instead we experience all sensations intensely with full clarity, without subject and object division. We sense bare sensations, which is all the manifestation of pure awareness without subject-object division, and not get involved with attachment to the contents of our thoughts.

There is just pure seeing which is not other than scenery, pure hearing not other than sounds, and all these are the manifestation of awareness without a seer, hearer, observer. Is eyes and ears involved? Of course, without eyes and ears there cannot be the manifestation -- the manifestation are dependently originated along with causes and conditions in which eyes and ears are part of them. However neither the 'eyes' or the 'ears' are the 'hearer' or 'seer' -- they are just a condition for a non-dual manifestation without seer-seen division.

Which also brings me to your question, where does the sense of self arise? In Buddhism the Buddha never taught anything about a locality, you'll never read a passage saying 'the Dharmas arise from where', nor an Ultimate Source where-in all dharmas are occuring, instead he only taught empty appearances that are dependently originated manifestations along with causes and conditions. And contrary to the usual misunderstanding, this is not really the exclusive teaching of Mahayana, Prajnaparamita, or Madhyamika teachings -- for example check out Phena Sutta in Pali Canon (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.095.than.html). Ajahn Amaro was also very clear that apart from Anatta (No 'Who'), other aspects such as 'No Where' (non locality), 'No When', etc are also very important. All these are discussed in Stage Six of Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Experience on Spiritual Enlightenment

An analogy: when we look at a red flower, that redness appears to be truly 'out there' existing in an outer location with inherent existence. However a dog wouldn't agree, because to the dog he only sees a black flower, while other animals and realms can see something totally different in shape and colour. If you look with quantum eyesight you'll see mostly empty space, where's the form? So seeing this, all the apparent characteristics of the 'red' 'flower' is merely an illusion-like appearance that is dependently originated, there is no substance located 'out there' nor is there an inherent redness located 'in here' -- merely a dependently originated mirage.

Similarly if you look at a thought, and observe where does it arise, where does thought arise, how does it arise, you will realise that though vividly appearing there is no substance or locality to thought -- it's nature is empty. Similarly the sense of self is just made of sensations (such as being bounded to a location within the head) and thoughts that dependently originate -- nothing inherent, nothing locatable, no 'where', no 'when', no 'who'. Empty yet vivid.

When we realise emptiness, we will realise that all our notions of things being located 'out there', 'in here', or any where, is simply a manifestation of our deeply rooted views of inherent existence. It is the manifestation of our karmic propensities/conditioning that can only be de-constructed through insights into the two emptinesses (of self and phenomena).

At an earlier phase like the I AMness you're experiencing now, Awareness is mistaken as an Ultimate Source that is like a vast container in which manifestation pops in and out of it, and the vast container-like Awareness remains unaffected, unchanged. Further insights are required to see that there is no Source/Manifestation dichotomy: All manifestations themselves are Source, and there is no other Source or Witnessing background to sink back to. There is no 'sense of self' or 'thoughts arising and subsiding within Awareness' because all thoughts, all phenomena themselves are none other than Awareness.

The Buddha criticized the view of Awareness as metaphysical substratum and essence, and as Thanissaro Bhikkhu said in a commentary on this sutta http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.001.than.html:

Although at present we rarely think in the same terms as the Samkhya philosophers, there has long been — and still is — a common tendency to create a "Buddhist" metaphysics in which the experience of emptiness, the Unconditioned, the Dharma-body, Buddha-nature, rigpa, etc., is said to function as the ground of being from which the "All" — the entirety of our sensory & mental experience — is said to spring and to which we return when we meditate. Some people think that these theories are the inventions of scholars without any direct meditative experience, but actually they have most often originated among meditators, who label (or in the words of the discourse, "perceive") a particular meditative experience as the ultimate goal, identify with it in a subtle way (as when we are told that "we are the knowing"), and then view that level of experience as the ground of being out of which all other experience comes.

Any teaching that follows these lines would be subject to the same criticism that the Buddha directed against the monks who first heard this discourse.

And anyway, interesting fact, as Rob Burbea (very enlightened teacher at Insight Meditation Society) said in the very good talk Realizing the Nature of Mind:

One time the Buddha to a group of monks and he basically told them not to see Awareness as The Source of all things. So this sense of there being a vast awareness and everything just appears out of that and disappears back into it, beautiful as that is, he told them that’s actually not a skillful way of viewing reality. And that is a very interesting sutta, because it’s one of the only suttas where at the end it doesn’t say the monks rejoiced in his words.

This group of monks didn’t want to hear that. They were quite happy with that level of insight, lovely as it was, and it said the monks did not rejoice in the Buddha’s words. (laughter) And similarly, one runs into this as a teacher, I have to say. This level is so attractive, it has so much of the flavor of something ultimate, that often times people are unbudgeable there.

Yes, I finally found the sutta he was talking about, it was the one above. And indeed at the end of the sutta it's stated "That is what the Blessed One said. Displeased, the monks did not delight in the Blessed One's words."

Thusness also warned about holding onto an ultimate source or ground of being at Buddha Nature is NOT "I Am"

I would also appreciate if you point out what I said that you thought was in disagreement with Satipatthana Sutta. Perhaps you were misreading me. I was simply saying Satipatthana Sutta never taught anything about a true self as an eternal observer.

However, I do have a problem with your term 'false self'.

As I and Thusness was telling djhampa (or you, since your writing style and paragraphing is so similar to djhampa) -- there is no false and true self. There is just five skandhas including the mental factors which you are talking about, but nothing about false self vs true self.

The Buddha in its exclusive Anatta teaching only found in Buddhism was adamant in teaching that there is no self substance within nor apart from the five skandhas (check out the Anatta Doctrine section in http://www.kktanhp.com/Theravada%20Buddhism.htm). There is no false self vs true self, what he meant is that there is simply the five skandhas -- and everything including mental perceptions and volition are simply the mental factors and components of the five skandhas, it is not a 'false self' in contrast with a 'true self'. All the five skandhas are anatta, not self, but there is also no existing self beyond the skandhas. No inherent self at all.

Also some Hindu non-dual traditions, especially Kashmir Shaivism but also some of the Advaita teachers were pretty clear that Brahman and the world are not separated much like the screen and the contents are one/unified, nevertheless they are still reifying the mirror-like awareness into a permanent substance (i.e. the screen), an ultimate Subject that is one with all objects. Even though non-duality of subject and object is experienced, this is still not the same as Anatta because of the reification of Consciousness as an ontological essence. So be careful of reifying any substance even though subject-object are unified. Stage 4 is the phase where we can't sync our dualistic view with direct experience. This is the difference between Thusness Stage 4 and Thuness Stage 5 in Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Experience on Spiritual Enlightenment

In the Pali suttas, Buddha never talk about non-duality of subject and object, but it is already a 'given', it is implied. There is no subject and object are one sort of teaching -- when there is absolutely No Subject, there is no unification of Subject with Objects either. In the suttas there is never was there a split of subject and object from the beginning, there is always anatta and phenomena self-liberates because it dependently orginates. The phenomena itself is the mirror (awareness), there is no ultimate mirror which is 'one' with contents.

If however you are talking from a Mahayana true self/buddha-nature point of view, then to prevent falling into the extremes of eternalism (which is the Hindu view that there is a transcendental eternal substance or atman-Brahman apart from the impermanent five skandhas), the Mahayana teachings and teachers state clearly that Impermanence is Buddha-Nature (Zen Master Dogen, Zen Patriarch Hui-Neng).

This does not mean Buddha-Nature is impermanent in the sense that it has a beginning and end -- it is eternal, but it is not a permanent eternal but a changing eternality -- which means it is a flow and continuum that never ceases like river flowing ceaselessly. Being like the flow of water it is lacking in any substantial permanent essence. There is no inherent self. And as Mahayogi Shridhar S.J.B. Rana Rinpoche says:

Vedànta vis-à-vis Shentong

The Buddha said that he taught something that had been lost for a long time. But the Vedas and the Vedic Bràhmaõa-s of the Buddha’s time, whom the Buddha met, had been and are still teaching the existence of true âtmà, and ‘eternal non-dual cognition’ as the Ultimate Reality.

If we glance through the Jain literature, we again find that no Jain scholar mentions that the Buddhists believed in an eternal / permanent non-dual cognition as the ultimate reality. At least, those Jain scholars after Asanga should have done so, if that was how the Uttara Tantra had been interpreted in India.

If we analyze both the Hindu Sankaràcàrya’s and the Buddhist Sàntarakùita’s refutation, we find that both agree with the view of the Hindu Advaita Vedànta, which is that the ultimate reality (âtmà) is an unchanging, eternal non-dual cognition and that the Buddhists as a whole do not agree that the ultimate reality is an eternal, unchanging non-dual cognition, but rather an changing eternal non-dual cognition. These statements found in the 6th century Hindu and the 9th century Buddhist (both were after the Uttara Tantra and Asanga), show that the ultimate reality as an unchanging, eternal non-dual cognition is a Hindu view and is non-existent amongst the Buddhists of India. Not only was such a view non-existent amongst Buddhists of India, but also it was refuted as a wrong view by scholars like Sàntarakùita. He even writes that if and when Buddhists use the word ‘eternal’ (nitya), it means ‘pariõàmi nitya’, i.e., changing eternal, and not the Hindu kind of eternal, which always remains unchanged.

Also sutras such as Shurangama Sutra is also very clear that the Five Skandhas are all Buddha-Nature, there is no distinction between the 'false self of skandhas' vs an eternal unchanging 'true self'. This is the meaning of non-duality.

If your view is that Buddha-Nature is a permanent background substance in which thoughts and phenomena arise from and subside to, then unfortunately this is the eternalist Hindu view (and the view of other monist contemplative traditions) and not the Buddha's insight. In Buddhism we teach Anatta and Dependent Origination, not an Ultimate God that is the source of all cosmic beings and worlds. There is no denying of Awareness, but we must not experience duality, we have to experience non-dual awareness. And even though if we experiece non-dual awareness, we must not fall into the subtle wrong views (like a universal cosmic consciousness) -- so keep the experience, but refine the views, as Thusness, Rob Burbea, and other teachers have said.

"Ananda, you have not yet understood that all the defiling objects that appear, all the illusory, ephemeral phenomena, spring up in the very spot where they also come to an end. Their phenomena aspects are illusory and false, but their nature is in truth the bright substance of wonderful enlightenment. Thus it is throughout, up to the five skandhas and the six entrances, to the twelve places and the eighteen realms; the union and mixture of various causes and conditions account for their illusory and false existence, and the separation and dispersion of the causes and conditions result in their illusory and false extinction. Who would have thought that production and extinction, coming and going are fundamentally the eternal wonderful light of the Tathagata, the unmoving, all-pervading perfection, the wonderful nature of True Suchness! If within the true and eternal nature one seeks coming and going, confusion and enlightenment, or birth and death, one will never find them."

.

.

"You still have not realized that in the Treasury of the Tathagata, the nature of form is true emptiness and the nature of emptiness is true form. That fundamental purity pervades the Dharma Realm. Beings’ minds absorb itaccording to their capacity to know. Whatever manifests does so in compliance with karma. Ignorant of that fact, people of the world are so deluded as to assign its origin to causes and conditions or to spontaneity. These mistakes, which arise from the discriminations and reasoning processes of the mind, are nothing but the play of empty and meaningless words."

Weychin

16 Sep 09, 15:59

I relate or vaguely, using the Chinese term (Wang Wo), literally translated as forgetting oneself. Figure of speech, I guess!One is in the act of awareness, "one" does not arise as the notion or one self observing that act of awareness does not arise. There no duality as there no acting and observing, just being, so duality does not arise!

Do you concur or, is something missing inthe equation, or is my assumption flawed? Why so?What should one be mindful

An Eternal Now

16 Sep 09, 18:10

Originally posted by Weychin:

I relate or vaguely, using the Chinese term (Wang Wo), literally translated as forgetting oneself. Figure of speech, I guess!One is in the act of awareness, "one" does not arise as the notion or one self observing that act of awareness does not arise. There no duality as there no acting and observing, just being, so duality does not arise!

Do you concur or, is something missing inthe equation, or is my assumption flawed? Why so?What should one be mindful

Forgetting self is a state. In fact that is a form of non-dual experience, where subject-object division temporarily dissolves in a moment of pure seeing or acting. When one forgets self, there is a sense of merging with environment. However this is taken as a stage and thus, temporary.

It is not the arising of insight that reality has always been non-dual, never has been separated, never was there subject-object division in the first place. This insight is permanent, and is thus called "enlightenment".

Herzog_Zwei

18 Sep 09, 10:33

Originally posted by An Eternal Now:

Forgetting self is a state. In fact that is a form of non-dual experience, where subject-object division temporarily dissolves in a moment of pure seeing or acting. When one forgets self, there is a sense of merging with environment. However this is taken as a stage and thus, temporary.

It is not the arising of insight that reality has always been non-dual, never has been separated, never was there subject-object division in the first place. This insight is permanent, and is thus called "enlightenment".

There is no pure seeing unless you do no exist. There is no merging with the the environment as you are you existing. Sometimes, there may be insight but most of the time it appears as hindsight.

Sgforumposter

18 Sep 09, 10:49

Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:

We could lose the one thing we could ill-afford to lose: our sanity.

So what is sanity to you Herzog_Zwei ?

I don't always venture into sgforum. Pardon my late reply. Do expand a little on what is sanity to you ? Remember that what is sanity to you is insane a few centuries ago and what we thought as sane today will probably viewed as silly, stupid and insane in the not too distant future.

Herzog_Zwei

18 Sep 09, 10:59

Originally posted by Sgforumposter:

So what is sanity to you Herzog_Zwei ?

I don't always venture into sgforum. Pardon my late reply. Do expand a little on what is sanity to you ? Remember that what is sanity to you is insane a few centuries ago and what we thought as sane today will probably viewed as silly, stupid and insane in the not too distant future.

Insanity to me is when the human mind can no longer think and make logical conclusions.

Sgforumposter

18 Sep 09, 12:03

Originally posted by An Eternal Now:

I hope nobody will bother wasting time and effort to reply to Herzog's insanity here. Please remember off topic posts will be removed, and keep posts practical, constructive and within the range of reason. I will be restricting pointless arguments. No point wasting time on people who are not interested in learning or practicing Buddhism and making bad karma by expressing all sorts of negativities about dharma.

I think he provided a good and important perspective. We seldom could see our delusions and worst yet think that our deluded understanding is correct. His "cookie wisdom" post can be thought of as refreshing in that it challenges our understanding. Remember that Buddha recommended that we continually test the gold.

_____ This lead me to my next point and i.e. "knowing".______

Vipassana as it is taught now claimed that knowing is only possible if we engage our perception. This basically meant that when we are lifting our leg, in walking meditation, we consciously tell ourselves "lifting,lifting,forward,forward, down,down". We often forget that "knowing" is actually a function of our consciousness and not our perception. Without our consciousness skandha there will be no knowing from all sensate input.

The mundane existence basically consisted of just consciousness and content of thoughts and this is our reality and therein also lies our "truth". We will fight tooth and nail and today we have a few nuclear missles as well, to defend these "truths".

Herzog is no different. The challenge is to understand and then know for ourselves that reality exist beyond the content of thoughts. The content of our thoughts are merely the map of the terrain and this is not the terrain itself. The terrain is beyond our actual perception (content of thought).

_____This lead me to "subject-object dichotomy". ________

Our false self lies within the mental factor (MN109). It is there that our sense of worth and value is validated and affirmed on a daily basis. Psychologists argued that a healthy sense of self is needed for us to be sane but it is precisely that that will make us insane because this "healthy sense of self" needed constant validation. Is it any wonder that ALL of us unless you are an arahant or Buddha constantly go out to seek affirmation and validation from others ? When that is no longer available like when a powerful leader retires, researches had shown that such a person literally went bonkers and they would try all manner of ways to distract themselves. The sense of loneliness experienced by the elderlies all over the world is a result of this supposedly "healthy sense of self."

When I talk to "eternal now" or Herzog I am actually not talking to "eternal now" or Herzog. I am actually talking to an impression I have of "eternal now" and Herzog in my mind. This impression is the "object" that we hold in our mind and we always thought that this "object" is really the person out there. All the petty hatred and deluded silliness is directed at this "object" in our head. This object exist in our head because of the false self, the subject we beheld in our head. This subject or the impression that we have of ourselves is the basis of how we see and engage with the world. Basically, we are talking to ourselves all the time ;-)

For most of us this subject and objects are frozen in space and time once it enters our mindstream. When we hated someone we continue to hate someone until one day we realised the silliness and stupidity of such an exercise. The subject or false self for all intents and purposes are gelled after our teenage years. As we go through life many objects continue to fill up our map in our head. Instead of growing in understanding and wisdom we grew more and more bitter and prejudicial. At every turn of our life the subject, our false self, has to be validated or else it would be rejected.

When we start to have the capacity of not engaging with our delusions or the contents of our thoughts (Bhn A in the picture I posted) the "energy" that feeds our delusions through our engagement is now become a lot less.

Stream entry is achieved when the emotive aspect, the mental formation skandha is very weak. One good practice to achieve this is to just "watch" your thoughts without engaging it. The moment you engage it you will feed the delusion and these delusions have a "life" of its own. Buddha recommended some practice on this. For example contemplating on the goodness of Buddha. If you are not overcome by gratitude etc. it meant that the "perception" had self-liberated. And this is "perception in perception" and it went no where - lah 8-)

Originally Posted by An Eternal Now

As to your post: I am not disagreeing that when we practice bare attention, vipassana, we are not engaging with contents, mental perception or formations or volition -- just bare sensate reality. In fact I have reiterated this a few times in my previous posts. However not engaging in the contents and stories of thought, the 'me' story, does not mean we become disassociated with our senses -- instead we experience all sensations intensely with full clarity, without subject and object division. We sense bare sensations, which is all the manifestation of pure awareness without subject-object division, and not get involved with attachment to the contents of our thoughts.

It is not the disassocation from the senses but from the sense objects. Sense objects(the objects that flowed from phassa - contact - into mental factors) are a product of sense input(the actual object out there) and contact with our consciousness. It is the nutriments for the arising of sense objects.

object --> sense organ --> phassa(contact) ----> Sense object ---> Mental factors

-->consciousness------------------------^ ^------------------------------------------------------ |

^-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

This is based on MN109. Notice also how mental factors flowed back into phassa and consciousness.

Vipassana is to help us weakened the consciousness engagement with phassa. The flowing back from mental factors into consciousness is our meta-cognition and this ability of our consciousness has to be cultivated. It is our ability to stand back.It is also the ability that gave us insights into our false self. The liberating insight of false self came through this path.

The direct flowing from object into our consciousness is where our insights of the universe arises. This is where insights of the universe arise from - the insight of the emptiness of reality.

Sgforumposter

18 Sep 09, 12:11

Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:

Insanity to me is when the human mind can no longer think and make logical conclusions.

Thinking requires content. If the content is false or wrong no matter how logical, reasonable or clever is your thinking the conclusion will be false and wrong.

Hitler was a great thinker and very reasonable and logical. Do you think he was sane ?

Herzog_Zwei

18 Sep 09, 12:14

Originally posted by Sgforumposter:

Thinking requires content. If the content is false or wrong no matter how logical, reasonable or clever is your thinking the conclusion will be false and wrong.

Hitler was a great thinker and very reasonable and logical. Do you think he was sane ?

What makes you think he is logical?

Sgforumposter

18 Sep 09, 19:56

Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:

What makes you think he is logical?

What made you think he was not ?

What are the facts - the contents of thoughts- that had made you questioned my assertion that Hitler was logical ?

The basis of what I had said is not difficult to find. Just do a google.

His logic was impeccable but the conclusion was horrendous because the content of his thoughts were such.

An Eternal Now

18 Sep 09, 23:28

_____ This lead me to my next point and i.e. "knowing".______

Vipassana as it is taught now claimed that knowing is only possible if we engage our perception. This basically meant that when we are lifting our leg, in walking meditation, we consciously tell ourselves "lifting,lifting,forward,forward, down,down". We often forget that "knowing" is actually a function of our consciousness and not our perception. Without our consciousness skandha there will be no knowing from all sensate input.

Yes, in Vipassana what is important is the bare sensate reality, or awareness, or consciousness as you put it. The ‘noting’ however can be a very useful tool, and is emphasized in the Myanmar style Vipassana of the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition. The enlightened teacher Daniel Ingram is a follower of this technique and tradition. However personally I do not practice the mental noting part – just bare observation of reality as it is. I have however read somewhere that noting can be helpful up till certain insight stages.

      The mundane existence basically consisted of just consciousness and content of thoughts and this is our reality and therein also lies our "truth". We will fight tooth and nail and today we have a few nuclear missles as well, to defend these "truths".

      Herzog is no different. The challenge is to understand and then know for ourselves that reality exist beyond the content of thoughts. The content of our thoughts are merely the map of the terrain and this is not the terrain itself. The terrain is beyond our actual perception (content of thought).

_____This lead me to "subject-object dichotomy". ________

     Our false self lies within the mental factor (MN109). It is there that our sense of worth and value is validated and affirmed on a daily basis. Psychologists argued that a healthy sense of self is needed for us to be sane but it is precisely that that will make us insane because this "healthy sense of self" needed constant validation. Is it any wonder that ALL of us unless you are an arahant or Buddha constantly go out to seek affirmation and validation from others ?   When that is no longer available like when a powerful leader retires, researches had shown that such a person literally went bonkers and they would try all manner of ways to distract themselves. The sense of loneliness experienced by the elderlies all over the world is a result of this supposedly "healthy sense of self."

       When I talk to "eternal now" or Herzog I am actually not talking to "eternal now" or Herzog. I am actually talking to an impression I have of "eternal now" and Herzog in my mind. This impression is the "object" that we hold in our mind and we always thought that this "object" is really the person out there. All the petty hatred and deluded silliness is directed at this "object" in our head. This object exist in our head because of the false self, the subject we beheld in our head. This subject or the impression that we have of ourselves is the basis of how we see and engage with the world. Basically, we are talking to ourselves all the time ;-)

    For most of us this subject and objects are frozen in space and time once it enters our mindstream. When we hated someone we continue to hate someone until one day we realised the silliness and stupidity of such an exercise. The subject or false self for all intents and purposes are gelled after our teenage years. As we go through life many objects continue to fill up our map in our head. Instead of growing in understanding and wisdom we grew more and more bitter and prejudicial. At every turn of our life the subject, our false self, has to be validated or else it would be rejected.

    When we start to have the capacity of not engaging with our delusions or the contents of our thoughts (Bhn A in the picture I posted) the "energy" that feeds our delusions through our engagement is now become a lot less.

    Stream entry is achieved when the emotive aspect, the mental formation skandha is very weak. One good practice to achieve this is to just "watch" your thoughts without engaging it. The moment you engage it you will feed the delusion and these delusions have a "life" of its own. Buddha recommended some practice on this. For example contemplating on the goodness of Buddha. If you are not overcome by gratitude etc. it meant that the "perception" had self-liberated. And this is "perception in perception" and it went no where - lah 8-)

Yes I agree with your observations. Subject-object thinking is the source of the three poisons and all the sufferings that results. Reality in itself is undivided/non-dual and is seemingly obscured by our subject-object thinking. Yet, even these thoughts themselves are the non-dual reality – as teacher Sailor Bob Adamson said,

"Subject-object thinking seems to cover the natural state (awareness). But without awareness, thinking could not take place. Because thinking appears in awareness (like a cloud appears in the sky), realise that thinking in essence is awareness. Understanding this, thinking cannot obscure awareness".

And 14^th century Mahamudra teacher Dakpo Tashi Namgyal said,

Excerpt from Pointing Out Innate Thinking:

"Is it an aware emptiness after the thought has dissolved? Or is it an aware emptiness by driving away the thought from meditation? Or, is the vividness of the thought itself an aware emptiness?"

If the meditator says it is like one of the first two cases, he had not cleared up the former uncertainties and should therefore be set to resolve this for a few days.

On the other hand, if he personally experiences it to be like the latter case, he has seen identity of thought and can therefore be given the following pointing-out instruction:

"When you look into a thought's identity, without having to dissolve the thought and without having to force it out by meditation, the vividness of the thought is itself the indescribable and naked state of aware emptiness. We call this seeing the natural face of innate thought or thought dawns as dharmakaya.

"Previously, when you determined the thought's identity and when you investigated the calm and the moving mind, you found that there was nothing other than this intangible single mind that is a self-knowing, natural awareness. It is just like the analogy of water and waves."

Hence the five skandhas, which includes mental cognition, is in essence Buddha-Nature itself, and though the content aspect of our thoughts is illusory (they are simply stories and projections we tell ourselves), the thought in itself is actually the aware-emptiness of Buddha-nature – which is what Shurangama Sutra is eluding to.

The five skandhas including the mental factors are all made of awareness, though insubstantial, nothing inherent, empty. So mental factors in reality turns out to be the so called ‘True Self’, and as such a dichotomy of false self vs. True self is broken down here, in the sense that there is no part of the sensate reality including mental factors that is not included in this all-encompassing non-dual nature of reality or awareness. The entire manifest universe is simply this One Seeing. It is not a seer seeing: scenery sees, no seer. Sound hears, no hearer. As Guru Padmasambhava said: only a naked manifest awareness without an observer. There is a good article on the topic of true self and no self by Daniel Ingram, called No-Self vs. True Self. However if by ‘false self’ you mean the dualistic, ‘separate self’ stories we tell ourselves, I’m fine with that definition.

I have to state though, even if we stop subject-object thinking, we still may not experience non-dual awareness. Because we are so habituated to subject-object experiencing, when we experience Awareness, the Awareness becomes experienced as a separate disassociated Subject/Observer/Witness. In fact it is always the case at the beginning to experience awareness as observer. One who have glimpses of this awareness may have the sense of awareness as being the passive Eternal Watcher which remains unmoved and indifferent while things just pass by. This is not the experience of non-duality. At this phase Awareness is still experience dualistically, as an inner witness ‘In Here’ while objects arise and pass away externally. At this phase the practitioner will want to practice ‘standing back’ to disassociate from everything and enter the state of mere witnessing. There is still the illusion that there is an ultimate Subject or Self that can ‘detach’ from things.

However, further insights into consciousness will reveal that what consciousness is is not a detached witness, but rather it is a manifestation that dependently originates. Not engaging/getting lost in the contents of thoughts does not mean standing back as a detached Witness of thoughts. It simply means experiencing sensate reality as it is without subject/object perception and thinking. Even if thoughts arise we simply observe or experience them as the energy, the manifestation of Awareness – not as an observer observing it. Actually sensate reality is already non-dual by nature, and is spontaneously manifesting according to conditions. All sensations, thoughts, manifestations, have the quality of knowingness – it is pervaded by the clear luminous cognisant nature, and is not other than it. That knowingness is not external to those sensations.

It is not the disassocation from the senses but from the sense objects. Sense objects(the objects that flowed from phassa - contact - into mental factors) are a product of sense input(the actual object out there) and contact with our consciousness. It is the nutriments for the arising of sense objects.

object -->   sense organ --> phassa(contact) ----> Sense object ---> Mental factors

-->consciousness------------------------^     ^------------------------------------------------------ |

     ^-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

   This is based on MN109. Notice also how mental factors flowed back into phassa and consciousness.

    Vipassana is to help us weakened the consciousness engagement with phassa. The flowing back from mental factors into consciousness is our meta-cognition and this ability of our consciousness has to be cultivated. It is our ability to stand back.It is also the ability that gave us insights into our false self. The liberating insight of false self came through this path.

     The direct flowing from object into our consciousness is where our insights of the universe arises. This is where insights of the universe arise from - the insight of the emptiness of reality.

First of all, any form of disassociation is illusory since it presupposes an ultimate Subject (Witness/Observer/etc) that could disassociate from 'objects' seen as external to himself. There is no such subject-object dichotomy. In Buddhism, all sense consciousness are Not the agent that observes external objects -- rather consciousness IS itself a manifestation of cognizance inseparable from the conditions which support that manifestation, which I will explain below. The view that consciousness is a Witness that is experiencing an objective universe is false, since in Buddhism consciousness IS the experiential reality of the so called objective universe (which isn't really objective) -- the 'universe' is in fact consciousness itself. And the entire manifest display of the universe is dependently originated. As such consciousness cannot disassociate from objects, because consciousness is not a subject and the universe not an object -- there is just the phenomenal universe which is itself awareness.

http://www.anintroductiontoawareness.com/Awareness/Book.html

Awareness is not our consciousness of the world; instead, Awareness is the phenomenal world. This seems to be counterintuitive because of the way we presume awareness operates. We see it as being like seeing, or hearing, or any of our other senses, somehow mirrored by the organs within our bodies. We take it to be a kind of sensing or percipiency. Thus some thing must be aware, sensing the world, like a brain which somehow ‘sees’ what the eyes see and ‘hears’ what the ears hear. It is easier to place this 'something' in the physical body – even if we cannot locate it with any assurance, explain how it works, or why it arises – than it is to say that Awareness is the existence of the world. Deriving the world from Awareness is much harder for us to contemplate. Some try to get free of the idea of consciousness being locked-up in our heads by erroneously proposing that the universe itself is aware. Others reduce awareness to some phantom-like add-on to our neurological processes. As you will discover reading through this book, Awareness is not sensing, it is doing. It is this activity of Awareness that we call "being" that gives rise to consciousness of ourselves and the phenomenal world.

Also, not engaging with delusions does not mean contact does not arise. In fact, contact will always arise, along with resultant pleasant and unpleasant feelings (not emotions as earlier stated, but sensate feelings that are pleasant/unpleasant/neutral) and even Arhants experience pleasant and unpleasant feelings. However, as I also stated earlier, even though for the Arhant there is contact and feelings, there is no craving – which means the three kinds of craving: the craving for pleasures, the craving to get rid of displeasure (i.e. aversion/anger), and the craving for existence. Therefore it is taught that Arhants experience feelings but are freed from defilements.

Though the sensation and feelings of pleasure/displeasure arise for the Arhant, he clearly comprehends them as they are without the sense of being a separate feeler/experiencer, and clearly sees that though feelings are present and vivid as clear awareness they are in essence empty and dependently originated, ungraspable. And hence, realising there is no separate ‘self’ to detach (or attach) from those pleasures or displeasures, those feelings are simply left as they are to arise and subside on their own accord without leaving traces like the flight path of a bird or the drawing of pictures on a pond. In other words: they self-liberates. A watcher standing back watching thought arise and pass is not the self-liberation that Dzogchen masters are talking about. In observing thoughts and sensations as it is, there is no observer and observed divisions, just clear awareness expressing as all manifestations. There is no clinging, but also no detached Witness.

At this point I would like to go deeper into a point I made earlier, “what consciousness is is not a detached witness, but rather it is a manifestation that dependently originates” – this is a very special and unique teaching to be found in Buddhism only. All other traditions talk about Consciousness as a kind of metaphysical essence, as an all powerful God like entity that is the unchanging source of everything. Though Buddhism does not deny the presence of clear vivid consciousness, we do not hold the view of a universal Consciousness or Source (only individual mindstream/consciousness/source). That means, we do not deny that precious experience of the pure presence, being, awareness, that Witnessing (not Witness) that is non-dual without subject/object division. However we do not reify such experience into an all-powerful ontological essence or Being or God/Brahman, some sort of unchanging inherent existence/essence.

In one of the suttas, Buddha reprimanded the monk Sati who thought of Consciousness as the watcher and experiencer of things and as some kind of inherent essence that moves from one body to another (the atman, soul view) – and instead taught that Consciousness is simply manifestation of cognizance that dependently originates, which Dharma Dan has also clearly explained in the post on Rigpa and Aggregates I posted earlier. Consciousness as defined by Buddha is not an entity that feels and experiences but is simply the manifestation of awareness/cognizance upon conditions.

Furthermore, what the Buddha teach is that Consciousness is actually made up of six kinds of consciousness which dependently originates (and this should answer your question earlier whether eyes and ears are involved in pure seeing and hearing), and this is clearly explained in the http://www.leighb.com/mn38.htm (The Longer Discourse on the Destruction of Craving):

"Sati, what is that consciousness?"

"Venerable sir, it is that which feels and experiences, that which reaps the results of good and evil actions done here and there."

"Foolish man, to whom do you know me having taught the Dhamma like this. Haven’t I taught, in various ways that consciousness is dependently arisen. Without a cause, there is no arising of consciousness. Yet you, foolish man, on account of your wrong view, you misrepresent me, as well as destroy yourself and accumulate much demerit, for which you will suffer for a long time."

Then the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus: "Bhikkhus, what do you think, has this this bhikkhu Sati, son of a fisherman, learned anything from this dispensation?" "No, venerable sir."

When this was said the bhikkhu Sati became silent, unable to reply back, and sat with drooping shoulders and eyes turned down. Then the Blessed One, knowing that the bhikkhu Sati had become silent, unable to reply back, and was sitting with drooping shoulders and with eyes turned down, told him: "Foolish man, you will be known on account of this pernicious view; now I will question the bhikkhus on this."

Then the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus: "Bhikkhus, do you too know of this Teaching, the wrong view of the bhikkhu Sati, the son of a fisherman, on account of which he misrepresents us and also destroys himself and accumulates much suffering?"

"No, venerable sir. In various ways we have been taught that consciousness arises dependently. Without a cause there is no arising of consciousness."

"Good, bhikkhus! Good that you know the Dhamma taught by me. In various ways I have taught that consciousness arises dependently. Without a cause, there is no arising of consciousness. Yet, this bhikkhu Sati, son of a fisherman, by holding to this wrong view, misrepresents us and destroys himself and accumulates much demerit, and it will be for his suffering for a long time.

"Bhikkhus, consciousness is reckoned by the condition dependent upon which it arises. If consciousness arises on account of eye and forms, it is reckoned as eye consciousness. If on account of ear and sounds it arises, it is reckoned as ear consciousness. If on account of nose and smells it arises, it is reckoned as nose consciousness. If on account of tongue and tastes it arises, it is reckoned as tongue consciousness. If on account of body and touch it arises, it is reckoned as body consciousness. If on account of mind and mind-objects it arises, it is reckoned as mind consciousness. Bhikkhus, just as a fire is reckoned based on whatever that fire burns - fire ablaze on sticks is a stick fire, fire ablaze on twigs is a twig fire, fire ablaze on grass is a grass fire, fire ablaze on cowdung is a cowdung fire, fire ablaze on grain thrash is a grain thrash fire, fire ablaze on rubbish is a rubbish fire - so too is consciousness reckoned by the condition dependent upon which it arises. In the same manner consciousness arisen on account is eye and forms is eye consciousness. Consciousness arisen on account of ear and sounds is ear consciousness. Consciousness arisen on account of nose and smells is nose conscioussness. Consciousness arisen on account of tongue and tastes is taste consciousness. Consciousness arisen on account of body and touch is body consciousness. Consciousness arisen on account of mind and mind-objects is mind consciousness.

"Bhikkhus, do you see, This has arisen?" "Yes, venerable sir". "Do you see it arises supported by That?" "Yes, venerable sir." "Bhikkhus, Do you see if the support ceases, the arising too ceases?" "Yes, venerable sir."

(continued in URL)

So understanding this way, we see that there is no observer or watcher, Awareness is simply a dependently originated manifestation and the question ‘Who feels’, ‘Who clings’ etc are out of place – clinging happens dependent on conditions. Non-attachment is simply the end of clinging, and not a separate Witness detaching. Without self, phenomena simply self liberates by its own accord, and this is naturally experienced when there is deep insights into anatta and shunyata.

This is well explained in the sutta http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn...2.012.nypo.html

Note how in each case the Buddha rejects the question of 'Who' as an assumption that is fundamentally wrong, and instead, inform the questioner of what he ought to have asked: "With what as condition...?" and finally "With what as condition is there birth/suffering?" (note that birth = 'becoming' in Pali terms)

When we see consciousness as dependently originated, we see that cognizance is simply a natural spontaneous occurrence without observer-observed split due to conditions. It’s totally natural – for example, without needing effort of any kind, when the bird chirps and your sense organs are functioning (the meeting/aggregation of the sense organ and object as conditions), a manifestation of auditory consciousness occurs – the sound of pure chirping, clear and vivid. It happens naturally due to conditions – and you have no choice about it! If you don’t like garbage smells, but when the wind blows you have no choice but to smell that, because that is what the conditions are there at the moment to give rise to a particular manifestation of unpleasant smell. Awareness is happening effortlessly and choicelessly as all these sensations/manifestations due to dependent origination and it has nothing to do with an inherent self or an observer. We cannot separate Awareness apart from those dependently originated (empty) manifestations, hence we see that there is nothing substantial and inherent about consciousness.

However we will not be able to truly realise and experience the full significance of dependent origination until we have deep realisation of non-duality and Anatta. Why? Because it is impossible to realise the dependent origination of consciousness unless we are able to transcend the view of Consciousness as a detached Witness, or an Inherent Self, some kind of ontological essence. In other words we will not be able to see dependent origination until we are able to overcome the bond of duality/separation, and the bond of inherency (e.g. viewing consciousness as an inherent self). There is nothing ontological about consciousness -- it is dependently originated. However to realise the D.O. fully we have to go step by step as Thusness told me many times: First is the experience of I AMness or the Witness, then we realise that the Witness is really a non-dual Witnessing not divided into subject and object, then we realise that this non-dual reality is in fact Anatta, empty of a self, nothing ontological -- only manifestations, process, events. No universal Brahman or a mirror that is unified with its contents. Then finally we can realise the dependent origination and empty nature of consciousness, and that is the Stage 6 out of Thusness's 7 stages.

Nothing is denied about our luminous aware nature -- only an ever deepening refinement of insights about the nature of awareness. So again, first have direct experience of the dissolution of subject-object duality into non-dual awareness first, then keep the experience, but refine the view.

An Eternal Now

19 Sep 09, 01:04

Dependent Arising of Consciousness

An important passage by Nagarjuna explaining that all manifestation are in essence Dharmadhatu or Buddha-Nature. It also explains the empty and dependent arisen nature of consciousness.

Arya Nagarjuna:

38. When eye and form assume their right relation,

Appearances appear without a blur.
Since these neither arise nor cease,
They are the dharmadhatu, though they are imagined to be otherwise.

39. When sound and ear assume their right relation,
A consciousness free of thought occurs.
These three are in essence the dharmadhatu, free of other characteristics,
But they become "hearing" when thought of conceptually.

40. Dependent upon the nose and an odor, one smells.
And as with the example of form there is neither arising nor cessation,
But in dependence upon the nose-consciousness’s experience,
The dharmadhatu is thought to be smell.

41. The tongue’s nature is emptiness.
The sphere of taste is voidness as well.
These are in essence the dharmadhatu
And are not the causes of the taste consciousness.

42. The pure body’s essence,
The characteristics of the object touched,
The tactile consciousness free of conditions—
These are called the dharmadhatu.

43. The phenomena that appear to the mental consciousness, the chief of them all,
Are conceptualized and then superimposed.
When this activity is abandoned, phenomena’s lack of self-essence is known.
Knowing this, meditate on the dharmadhatu.

44. And so is all that is seen or heard or smelled,
Tasted, touched, and imagined,
When yogis [and yoginis]* understand these in this manner,
All their wonderful qualities are brought to consummation.

45. Perception’s doors in eyes and ears and nose,
In tongue and body and the mental gate—
All these six are utterly pure.
These consciousnesses’ purity itself is suchness’ defining characteristic.

Zen Patriarch Bodhidharma on the Inseparability of Awareness and Conditions

The following blog entry is from a post made in my forum a few years ago time ago. It is about seeing awareness as manifestation instead of a mirror reflecting, and seeing the inseparability of awareness and conditions. This is also related to a previous blog entry Dependent Arising of Consciousness which contains a related text by Arya Nagarjuna.

---------------

Passerby/Thusness saw some inadequateness in one of the Zen Patriarch Bodhidharma translations, and translated himself a certain passage and commented on my forum:

Original Chinese text from Bodhidharma's Bloodstream Sermon (è¡€è„‰è®º): è‹¥æ™ºæ…§æ˜Žäº†ï¼Œæ¤å¿ƒå�·å��æ³•æ€§ï¼Œäº¦å��è§£è„±ã€‚ç”Ÿæ»ä¸�æ‹˜ï¼Œä¸€åˆ‡æ³•æ‹˜å®ƒä¸�å¾—ï¼Œæ˜¯å��å¤§è‡ªåœ¨çŽ‹å¦‚æ�¥ï¼›äº¦å��ä¸�æ€�è®®ï¼Œäº¦å��åœ£ä½“ï¼Œäº¦å��é•¿ç”Ÿä¸�æ»ï¼Œäº¦å��å¤§ä»™ã€‚å��è™½ä¸�å�Œï¼Œä½“å�³æ˜¯ ä¸€ã€‚åœ£äººç§�ç§�åˆ†åˆ«ï¼Œçš†ä¸�ç¦»è‡ªå¿ƒã€‚å¿ƒé‡�å¹¿å¤§ï¼Œåº”ç”¨æ— ç©·ï¼Œåº”çœ¼è§�è‰²ï¼Œåº”è€³é—»å£°ï¼Œåº”é¼»å—…é¦™ï¼Œåº”èˆŒçŸ¥å‘³ï¼Œä¹ƒè‡³æ–½ä¸ºè¿�åŠ¨ï¼Œçš†æ˜¯è‡ªå¿ƒã€‚

(I myself translated certain parts to fill in the gap): With the illumination of wisdom (prajna), mind is known as Dharma Nature, mind is known as Liberation. Neither life nor death can restrain this mind, no dharmas (phenomenon) can. It’s also called the King of Great Freedom Tathagata, the Incomprehensible, the Holy Essence, the Immortality, the Great Immortal. Its names vary but its essence is one. Sages vary, but none are separate from his own mind. The mind’s capacity is limitless, and its conditional functions are inexhaustible. With the condition of eyes, forms are seen, With the condition of ears, sounds are heard, With the condition of nose, smells are smelled, With the condition of tongue, tastes are tasted, every movement or states are all one's Mind.

Comments by Passerby/Thusness:

è‹¥æ™ºæ…§æ˜Žäº†ï¼Œæ¤å¿ƒå�·å��æ³•æ€§ï¼Œäº¦å��è§£è„±ã€‚

A better way to translate this should be:

With the illumination of wisdom (prajna), mind is known as Dharma Nature, mind is known as Liberation.

Comments: It is important to know that mind is itself liberation. That is why knowing the nature of our mind is the way of liberation. If Liberation is not experienced, then the clarity is still not there. There is no true understanding of what mind is.

Liberation is this Pristine Awareness itself in its natural state. That is why understanding this Pristine Awareness is the direct path towards liberation. If we cannot see that the 5 aggregates are themselves our Buddha Nature, then we will not understand there is nothing to shunt from the transience. Thought liberates, sound liberates, tastes liberates. The transience liberates. If we do not see that, then we are taking a gradual path. It is also not advisable to speak too much about spontaneous arising or self liberation. It can be quite misleading.

----------------

åº”çœ¼è§�è‰²ï¼Œåº”è€³é—»å£°ï¼Œåº”é¼»å—…é¦™ï¼Œåº”èˆŒçŸ¥å‘³ï¼Œä¹ƒè‡³æ–½ä¸ºè¿�åŠ¨ï¼Œçš†æ˜¯è‡ªå¿ƒã€‚

A better way to translate should be:

With the condition of the eye, forms are seen, With the condition of ears, sounds are heard, With the condition of nose, smells are smelled, With the condition of tongue, tastes are tasted, every movement or states are all one's Mind.

Thusness/Passerby's comments:

Here there are 2 important points to take note. First is that Buddha Nature is the transience. Second it is more of 'åº”'. Means with the condition of the eye, forms arise. With ears, sound arises.

Awareness is not like a mirror reflecting but rather a manifestation. Luminosity is an arising luminous manifestation rather than a mirror reflecting. The center here is being replaced with Dependent Origination, the experience however is non-dual.

One must learn how to see Appearances as Awareness and all others as conditions. Example, sound is awareness. The person, the stick, the bell, hitting, air, ears...are conditions. One should learn to see in this way. All problems arise because we cannot experience Awareness this way.

Conventionally we experience in the form of subject and object interaction taking place in a space-time continuum. This is just an assumption. Experientially it is not so. One should learn to experience awareness as the manifestation. There is no subject, there is only and always manifestation, all else are conditions of arising. All these are just provisional explanations for one to understand.

Further comments:

What's seen is Awareness. What's heard is Awareness. All experiences are non-dual in nature. However this non-dual luminosity cannot be understood apart from the ‘causes and conditions’ of arising. Therefore do not see ‘yin’ as Awareness interacting with external conditions. If you see it as so, then it still falls in the category of mirror-reflecting. Rather see it as an instantaneous manifestation where nothing excluded. As if the universe is giving its very best for this moment to arise. A moment is complete and non-dual. Vividly manifest and thoroughly gone leaving no traces.

Other comments:

Phrase like “everything arises from Emptiness and subsides back to Emptiness” is equally misleading. By doing so, we have made ‘Emptiness’ into a metaphysical essence; similarly not to make the same mistake for “causes and conditions”, not to objectify it into a metaphysical essence. All are provision terms to point to our insubstantial, essence-less and interdependent nature.

Herzog_Zwei

19 Sep 09, 06:29

Originally posted by Sgforumposter:

What made you think he was not ?

What are the facts - the contents of thoughts- that had made you questioned my assertion that Hitler was logical ?

The basis of what I had said is not difficult to find. Just do a google.

His logic was impeccable but the conclusion was horrendous because the content of his thoughts were such.

What nonsense you posting about? Do a google purposefully on a subject that is false and you may still get an untruthful answer.

soul2soul

19 Sep 09, 09:21

What is the True Dhamma then?

Sgforumposter

19 Sep 09, 11:17

AEN Wrote :

bare sensate reality

Do you mean that reality that is based on our senses or observed through our senses ?

If it is so it will ALWAYS be false. Whatever good insights that arise would be fortuitous.

Sgforumposter

19 Sep 09, 11:35

Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:

What nonsense you posting about? Do a google purposefully on a subject that is false and you may still get an untruthful answer.

Ah! the clever one. So now do you agree with me that if the content of thought is false or wrong then no matter how logical you are the conclusion will be false and wrong ?

Btw. this is actually logic 101 ;-) . By golly we have to take a few days just for this simple truth to sink in.

Sgforumposter

19 Sep 09, 11:52

AEN wrote :

Who, what, where etc.

I asked a simple question of where DO YOU THINK the sense of FALSE SELF ARISE from and you cited works after works, comments after comments about anatta and where it did not arise from. And then venture into emptiness of how wrong some phrases were and so on and so forth.

My question is very simple. Within the skandhic model WHERE does your sense of FALSE SELF arise from ? Remember it is the SENSE of FALSE SELF I am talking about.

Your position is that the FALSE SELF do not exist only the skandha. But again where does your SENSE of SELF (FALSE) came from ? I am not splitting hair. You seem fixated with the idea that just because thusness said that false self do not exist and you argued with voluminous articles on the non-existence of FALSE SELF.

Btw. you can never prove the non-existence of anything.

An Eternal Now

19 Sep 09, 11:54

Originally posted by Sgforumposter:

    I asked a simple question of where DO YOU THINK the sense of FALSE SELF ARISE from and you cited works after works, comments after comments about anatta and where it did not arise from. And then venture into emptiness of how wrong some phrases were and so on and so forth.

    My question is very simple. Within the skandhic model WHERE does your sense of FALSE SELF arise from ? Remember it is the SENSE of FALSE SELF I am talking about.

    Your position is that the FALSE SELF do not exist only the skandha. But again where does your SENSE of SELF (FALSE) came from ? I am not splitting hair. You seem fixated with the idea that just because thusness said that false self do not exist and you argued with voluminous articles on the non-existence of FALSE SELF.

   Btw. you can never prove the non-existence of anything.

The sense of self lies in perception and volition. The sense of self is just a sense of self... not a false self vs true self. Those mental factors arise without an observer or thinker and are anatta. There is no separate observer of mental factors that is the 'true self'.

An Eternal Now

19 Sep 09, 11:55

Originally posted by Sgforumposter:

AEN Wrote :

Do you mean that reality that is based on our senses or observed through our senses ?

If it is so it will ALWAYS be false. Whatever good insights that arise would be fortuitous.

Our sensate reality (not the mental perception of it) which includes sights, sounds, thoughts, and so on are the reality itself. They are the Buddha-Nature itself.

An Eternal Now

19 Sep 09, 11:58

There is no other reality than the sensate reality. I wonder if you have read what I have posted above including the Buddha's teachings on consciousness. If you think that reality is a detached witness or some sort of inherent essence then that is still under the illusion of subject/object duality and the illusion of inherency. There is no such divisions or inherency to consciousness. Awareness is a manifestation.