stirling
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Posts posted by stirling
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11 hours ago, snowymountains said:Not necessarily, depends what you mean, a spiritual experience can happen while dreaming or daydreaming ( what people used to call visions ). The experience itself may transcend space time.
It depends on what you mean, while experiences and in specific non dual realisations may transcend space time, of course everything still happens in spacetime, but the focus is on an experience whose message transcends it.
What I am trying to get at is that non-dual insight into emptiness will definitely include seeing through the delusion of space/time/self-hood. There is no experiencer, or some might say the fabric of everything is the experiencer. It isn't an experience, it is seeing the underlying substratum that underpins all experiencing. It is a glimpse, and eventually a full-time seeing behind the curtain. It is a persistent understanding that is always present.
11 hours ago, snowymountains said:For me the non dual realisations are the most important spiritual experiences.
It would be, yes. But, what IS a non-dual realization in your estimation? How would you define one?
11 hours ago, snowymountains said:My experience is that there's a transcendental part in us that is common. In parallel there's still a self though and everything that various personality structure theories study. We use mental/intellectual constructs to describe these as part of a body of knowledge of course but they exist in that these concepts have explanatory power. They can also be experienced directly ( one example for direct experiencing is eg ego state therapies )
I see. Thank you.
11 hours ago, snowymountains said:For me the "best" way to describe it is seeing the unborn, seeing what's deeper than all the personality layers that were acquired later and various theories of personality structure do a very good job at shining light on.
This doesn't mean the rest of the stuff is not there, because it is, but it means there's a layer, a ground state of sorts.
What I am describing would be underneath anything you could describe as a system, category, or structure. I understand that this may not make a lot of sense, or even seem possible.
11 hours ago, snowymountains said:We've discussed it elsewhere if I recall, I don't see Samatha-Vipassana as a practice that's sufficient to uncover a lot of things in us. It is very helpful though and a good starting point but I believe it needs to be complemented. So in a sense insight meditation is not sufficient for insight.
Yes, I believe we have agreed to disagree.
Samatha-Vipassana is ultimately aiming at a deeper level underneath psychological or mental constructs, and in my experience is about as good as any practice for gnosis.
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18 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:... it is usually Vajrayana students getting into lengthy online emptiness polemics and quote battles, which is ironic given emptiness teachings. But I think at the end of the day, folks are working through their karma.
Yes.... and arguing the conceptual aspects, which isn't really helpful, IMHO. All of that grasping and clinging to ego is GREAT fuel for insight!
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4 hours ago, Apech said:Not really.
... it is, though.
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2 hours ago, snowymountains said:We use different definitions here, for me what you call non dual insights are what I would call real spiritual experiences.
A spiritual experience is an event that happens in time and space to a person. Is that something you would agree with? If so, how would a non-dual insight be described as different?
My experience is that a non-dual insight is a moment where the experience of being a "self" in a body that lives in time and space is temporarily suspended, and it is seen that your experience of the world never really had those features - that they have always only been mental constructs. Afterward, those constructs can be seen through at any time. Eventually is impossible to believe those mental constructs and they no longer have any reality. Despite all of that, the world goes on more or less just the same, though things get stranger in the most lovely way.
2 hours ago, snowymountains said:To me the rest are interesting messages, true or false, but nonetheless interesting, from various layers of our unconscious. Even synchronicities, to me at least, are less spiritual/less interesting than insights.
The question I would ask myself is: Can you see them come from a layer of consciousness, or is that a conceptual way for your to explain them?
In my opinion synchronicities happen because space, time, and separateness of self and other of all kinds are delusions. Of course seemingly separate (but not) things and events want to be happening together all of the time.
2 hours ago, snowymountains said:I don't agree with this as an outcome of insight meditation, after all one focuses on what is most dominant not to the most dominant and the second most dominant and certainly not everything.
Not insight meditation, but actual insight into Rigpa/Buddha Nature/No-Self/Emptiness/Nirvana. This is view from non-dual realization.
2 hours ago, snowymountains said:Wholeness can only be realised outside Insight, unless by wholeness you refer to Nibbana, which I cannot comment on as I have not experienced it.
The true, important insight IS into Rigpa/Buddha Nature/No-Self/Emptiness/Nirvana. It is non-dual understanding.
QuoteIn the Theravāda tradition, vipassanā is a practice that seeks "insight into the true nature of reality", which is defined as anicca ("impermanence"), dukkha ("suffering, unsatisfactoriness"), and anattā ("non-self"): the three marks of existence.[6][7] In the Mahayana traditions vipassanā is defined as insight into śūnyatā ("emptiness") and Buddha-nature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samatha-vipassana#
2 hours ago, snowymountains said:Do you mean unity across everything ( living beings and inorganic)?
No. A sort of unity of all phenomena could be argued for, but it would include everything that might constitute the fabric of reality.
2 hours ago, snowymountains said:If instead you mean unity between people. I think that is a thing, I don't have an exact way to put it in writing, perhaps a way of expressing it, what remains eg after the process of death strips away our personality elements, that part which remains is shared between humans.
I mean that, in my experience, the unity of people ("we are all one") is not a thing.
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31 minutes ago, snowymountains said:Imo this is all BS, each person is different, experience progress in their spiritual paths differently and then documented their paths as a universal truth, hence the differences between lineages.
I agree about spiritual paths - different shifts, different events, no real "system" to it. Non-dual insight is not a "spiritual' event though, it is a gnosis or experiential knowledge. I have had many spiritual and paranormal experiences, but none of them gave me any permanent, shift in my understanding of how the "universe" is.
Non-dual shifts are a different thing entirely, and have none of the drama or spiritual trappings of spiritual experiences.
31 minutes ago, snowymountains said:It's also how people count it, eg if they count practice time too. The Buddha is said to have become enlightened the first night he sat under the bodhi tree. Well, how long did he practice for before that.. doesn't look so sudden.
Theravadans agree on sudden being possible under the Zen definition of sudden btw, they just count the total time and thus use a different definition of sudden, so they speak of gradual enlightenment.
This is acting with the assumption that it is the PRACTICE that somehow causes enlightenment. This isn't the case, from the perspective of enlightenment.
Quote“Gaining enlightenment is an accident. Spiritual practice simply makes us accident-prone.” - Shuryu Suzuki Roshi
I'm not sure what you mean by counting the total time. I have not encountered that.
31 minutes ago, snowymountains said:what I am curious about is whether in more advanced non dual insights there is sort of unification between eg people and inorganic matter ( e.g. rocks ), I refer to felt unification here as a spiritual experience, not a logical understanding that we're all made of the same elements from the same supernovas etc etc.
Moment to moment there is just a seemless wholeness. As seen: light and color, unlabeled and undifferentiated. Not a feeling or conceptual ideation, just pure experiencing, here, now.
Quote"Herein, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: 'In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.' In this way you should train yourself, Bahiya.
"When, Bahiya, for you in the seen is merely what is seen... in the cognized is merely what is cognized, then, Bahiya, you will not be 'with that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'with that,' then, Bahiya, you will not be 'in that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'in that,' then, Bahiya, you will be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two. Just this is the end of suffering." - Buddha, Bahiya Sutta31 minutes ago, snowymountains said:Not eg a sensation of unity just between all people, going beyond that.
Right... that isn't a thing, ultimately.
31 minutes ago, snowymountains said:Maybe there aren't more insights, that I don't know, I'm not an Arahat, but there will always be room for living according to the gained insights.
More insights? From my perspective that would be impossible... but who knows?
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2 minutes ago, Apech said:The two truths doctrine is a fudge to cover inconsistency in Buddhist thinking.
Nah... it is a RELATIVE teaching... a scaffolding for educational purposes only. A "wall of the mind" that has no reality.
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29 minutes ago, snowymountains said:Now you are getting into kensho vs satori where there is not a universal consensus amongst Zen lineages. Some lineages use kensho as in spiritual realisation not as in awakening, hence someone may have many kenshos. Though historically I believe the two terms were closer one another and some lineages today still use them synonymously.
I don't like to use those terms for that reason. My feeling is that Kensho is non-abiding, and Satori is abiding, but it isn't important to frame the discussion that way. Arguments about differences in terminology aren't really helpful or enjoyable.
This is what I have gathered from my personal experience and those of various teachers I have discussed this topic with.
"Awakening", or the first experiential glimpse of emptiness, only happens once. There is nothing else to awaken to - the understanding supercedes any other conceptual "knowledge" or insight. After that seeing, emptiness is an available perspective when one drops the process of contriving their experience. In terms of maps, this would be the "sotapanna" or "stream-enterer" in the standard fetter model of early Buddhism.
After some time (the traditional standard is about 10 years) that available perspective deepens, dualities continue to drop and "self" winds down. Emptiness becomes a permanent perspective. This would correspond to the "arhat" designation in the fetter model.
There may be spiritual experiences before, during or after this process, but they aren't new insights, and they don't definitely happen to everyone, or in any particular order.
29 minutes ago, snowymountains said:Sudden vs gradual is another point of no consensus.
It is a definition problem. The progress from sotapanna to arhat is gradual, but not because the essential insight has changed or been improved upon... only deepened as the realization of there being no self and other progresses.
If you are looking for clarity, asking if there is more than one real non-dual insight in a "gradual" path would be the salient question.
29 minutes ago, snowymountains said:Agreed re teachers.
Not sure why people get attached to paths, teachers, or traditions. It is NICE that there seem to be endless varieties of experience!
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3 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:I am skeptical. But I have an old school definition of enlightenment, as opposed to the folks you regularly encounter on say, BATGAP (not saying this applies to anyone here specifically, just making a general statement).
I agree with you, honestly. When people start talking about awakening-s, for example, it is pause for concern. While the understanding deepens (or ripens) there is a definite and unmistakeable before and after, and once there is an after the deepening doesn't stop unless possibly something has stopped the process which I find hard to believe. My experience is that it is a roller coaster - you aren't jumping off. Having said all of the above, I have found that there is some clarity to be had from some of the more recently realized, including both traditional teachers AND those who have come to it by unconventional circumstances, Buddhist or not.
QuoteI practiced in the Zen world for some years, mostly in the Katagiri line. One issue I had was that when I had an intellectual concern, I was always told to ignore it, repress it, or set it aside. Sometimes I would get an unsatisfying answer. One story I heard is that Katagiri Roshi went to a students house, and she wanted to show him her collection of dharma books. He looked at it, laughed, and said, "Oh, no, a really big problem!"
I am certainly against any kind of repression of thoughts (or ideas) of any kind, though I do think that where someone is trying to cobble together their own version of something or create some definitive conceptual construct about reality that it is a trap. Definitely the Zen teachers of a generation or two ago had taken the rather severe flavor of their teachers to heart. I think that is rarely of service to others.
QuoteThere is one Dharma, not many;
distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with discriminating mind
is the greatest of all mistakes. - Seng T'san, Hsin Hsing MingMy teacher had a massive library. A few years before I met her there was a flood and it destroyed the entire thing. It took that event for her to realized that she had built a "fortress of competence" out of those books - a sort of physical, unassailable proof that she was intellectually unassailable. She will tell you that the destruction of that "fortress" was a gift.
QuoteBut for me, if the thinking mind wasn't on board, the practice doesn't follow. I had intellectual knots that could only be undone intellectually. Now of course, the Tibetans tend to go overboard on that side, and the teachings can often dry out and become rote, so to speak, as they become distanced from first hand experience.
I agree that sometime the intellectual scaffolding of some ideas about how things might be can help us relax enough to get the whole framework out of our way. I have seen that be the case. At the same time, it is good to reinforce that intellectual understanding of Nagarjuna is not seeing the actual Prajna of enlightened mind to a student, in my opinion. The internet is full of people arguing the dharma and getting nowhere. For me, that is a difficult thing to watch.
QuoteIt sounds positive that you've agreed to the teacher role--- just my (very unpopular) opinion but I think Soto Zen needs more teachers who seem to have actually realized something.
Thank you. _/\_ I agree with you. Teachers are hit and miss in general, and Soto is no stranger to that. I have sat sesshin with a number of brown robes that I was sure didn't truly understand. This isn't to say that there isn't value in having teachers who may not have insight, but can teach people how to reduce their suffering. I do think, however, that direct pointing on a regular basis is possibly the most important thing a teacher can impart, and obviously that takes some specific understanding.
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4 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:That's true, but it is very rare for some one to "get it" right away. If there wasn't, the would dispense with relative, conventional teachings but they do not.
Absolutely. Skillful means and all of that. There are times and places for attempts at direct pointing, but also for using a scaffolding of ideas to support inquiry. In my past both might be employed within minutes of each other, and direct pointing right at the beginning in the hopes of sudden awakening, as rare as that seems. I guess it must be happening occasionally?
QuoteNo, all of my Vajrayana teachers are Rime and experientially based (being in the lineage of Changchub Dorje and Tulku Urgyen). I don't identify with any tradition in particular, or any conclusion.
There was a well known Dzogchen teacher who I saw some years ago. He said when some one asked if he realized rigpa, he said "I don't know," and seemed sincere. Initially, I thought this was a weakness, but as it turns out, it is a strength.
Yes, similar to the Suzuki Roshi lineage I am a teacher in and the concept of "don't know" mind. Along those lines:
QuoteI prostrate to Gautama'
Who through compassion'
Taught the true doctrine,
Which leads to the relinquishing of all views.
- Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika (Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way), translated by Jay Garfield
Not knowing is most intimate. - Luohan Guichen, Case 20 of The Book of Equanimity, translated by Gerry Shishin Wick
If even one thought appears, that is already a mistake. - Zen Master So Sahn, The Mirror of Zen, translated by Hyon Gak
I do not teach Buddhism. I only teach don’t know. - Zen Master Seung Sahn, The Compass of Zen
... I collect things along these lines when I come across them.
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2 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:While I agree with much of this post, I think this is a common misunderstanding from a typical Kagyu/Nyingma Buddhist perspective in my experience. This is a common question or suggestion I've seen posed to many teachers and every one of them rejected it.
Everything is empty, i.e. it lacks a unitary, independent, permanent self or essence, but not everything is aware. Classic examples are pots and pillars. A pot is empty of a unitary, independent, permanent "pot nature," but we would not say that it is therefore aware. Further, specific to Nyingma based Dzogchen teachings, emptiness is generally considered a non-affirming negation, a minus without a plus. So when we say X is empty, it doesn't not mean that we are asserting anything positive about X.
Of course, one is free to disagree with this perspective.
I'm not saying that individual things have intrinsic self-awareness, but that Rigpa is the nature of all phenomena. Rigpa means pure awareness.
https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Awareness
It is tough to talk about since every discussion of just what or how these things are will be wrong, since conceptually discussions tend to focus on individual features of the topic, and it is so much broader. Really only experiential gnosis can be counted on, as Nagarjuna reminds us:
QuoteDue to having faith one relies on the practices, Due to having wisdom one truly knows. Of these two wisdom is the chief, Faith is its prerequisite. - Nagarjuna, The Precious Garland
When I talk these things I rely on insight and how it appears to "me", and try to use the simplest language I can, rather than terminology from traditions. From my perspective, leaving out many details, all appearances in consciousness are luminously aware, still, silent, have no separateness.
Glad to see another Vajrayana practitioner! I am originally from the Dudjom Tersar lineage of Nyingma via Ngakpa Chogyam (Aro Ter), Gyatrul Rinpoche, and Tharchin Rinpoche. Are you also a Nyingmapa?
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19 hours ago, Apech said:I'm looking for a solution to a problem posed by the 'unreal' position in Buddhism, where we are often encouraged to view the world as like a dream or a magic display etc. I find this unsatisfactory although I understand the basis for it. In my view the tree is a real tree as distinct to an imaginary tree - this distinction is perhaps magnified by the modern tendency towards 'fantasy' and the the like and the preference for the imaginary digital world over the substantial 'real' existence - even though the latter may at time be dull and uninspirational.
The "unreal" position is really a Mahamudra/Vajrayana proposition, just to acknowledge our Theravada friends who would talk about this in a different way. The relative and absolute proposition is that both are "real", but not in the same way or at the same level. While the relative has its own internal consistency and makes sense self-referentially, it is not how reality absolutely is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine
I have read Ken Wilber pose it as something like: "Absolute reality includes but supercedes relative reality". So the always changing relative is, in a sense, dreamlike because it isn't truly comprised of objects that have any permanent reality, whereas the "emptiness" (or maybe awareness might be a more useable term) is omnipresent. What "we" actually ARE is this "emptiness"/awareness, so "we" also are omnipresent. This is of course a conceptual description lacking massive amounts of nuance and depth of understanding.
My observation is that, as insight deepens, reality DOES become less real. "Self" is silent and centerless and mostly no longer internally or externally a referential construct. Time and space continue to lose solidity as an experience. There is a frequent flow of synchronicity (using THIS definition), increases in deeper intuition that are nearly mind-reading, increasing sleeping and waking visionary experiences and more. Having done a little reading on Magick (mostly Chaos Magick), I see how most "spells" only work where there is at least some internal logic for how they might manifest. This is a fundamental recognition of how reality is, in my opinion. My sense of reality is softened in a number of aspects, so there are venues for how certain things might be manifested now. The more these boundaries are stretched, the more some things become possible. I can't walk through a tree, but maybe it is possible to soften things to that degree at some point? I don't know. The more possible walking through a tree seems, the more likely it is to happen?
Having said all of that, this doesn't mean that anyone else will be able to see or experience what is experienced by the yogi. The idea of there being a single causal relative reality just isn't real, in my opinion. My experience is that it IS a dream-like and ephemeral as the Diamond Sutra suggests:
Quote"So you should view this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, A flash of lightening in a summer cloud, A flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream." - Buddha, Diamond Sutra
19 hours ago, Apech said:I appreciate that perception is far from the simple camera lens analogy which we sometimes use. Much of what we call perception is interpretation by our brains using a world model built from both our indivaidual experience and encoded experience from millions of years of evolution. In that sense we carry a world in our heads which forms the basis for each actual incidence of seeing. But that doesn't remove the question of whether the observed is real - is the tree real and what distinguishes from an unreal tree.
I think the tree appears as a tree because your "story" of the world (karma) is arising at the moment you view the tree, along with your story about where you live, who you are, how the world is and all of the other sensate phenomena. It is a construction of this moment, lasting as it appears, just for this moment. The trees reality depends on your internally consistent experience of it, whether you can hang from it, climb it, gather olives from it, or walk through it.
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6 hours ago, Apech said:I think we can accept the skandha idea as true - I know for instance that the tree in my yard is a collection of 'trillions' of cells, water, mycelia, insect life .... and so on ... in this sense ... I could say the tree itself is an epi-phenomenon and dependent on causes and conditions. Despite knowing this the experience if the tree, its sight, it's tough, the 'aura' of its presence are all real. Perhaps not in a strict philosophical way but in an immediate way.
And moreover things can be empty and real. Because empty doesn't mean void or nothing.
But my question is - where does that reality come from? Why is the tree real?
Speaking for myself, it is clear to me that there are NO ideas that are "true". They are comprised of mental formations that are reflections of something perceived and then compounded together to make a conceptual construct - an artificial division in reality that makes discussing things convenient.
Quote“You have never had a thought that was true” - Adyashanti
The teaching of the skandhas is one such mental formation, just as dependent origination, the Noble Eightfold path, and the entire idea of practices and paths are. All of these are "relative" truths.
As Seng T'san said in the Tsin Tsin Ming:
QuoteTo seek Mind with discriminating mind
is the greatest of all mistakes.All philosophies and symptoms are as mistaken as each other.
Quote“The awakened mind is turned upside down and does not accord even with the Buddha-wisdom.” - Hui Hai
What is reality? I would say that it is the entirely self-less, space-less, time-less arising and passing of unlabeled and unlabel-able phenomena appearing in awareness now.
My 2¢.
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32 minutes ago, Salvijus said:I don’t think suggesting ideas for contemplation and having an open discussion around it counts as trolling. And the biggest irony of all is that you yourself understand and agree that all identity is ultimately a false thing. You already displayed that understanding earlier. At this point you yourself are trolling yourself.
Ah... but how many times has it been suggested? One veers into troll territory when they are unable to stop continually hammering someone else in a thread, despite that persons obvious discomfort, or inability to reconcile it in context.
At this point you have had as much opportunity as you could possibly require to make your point. It has been heard. It would be kind and respectful to drop it now.
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29 minutes ago, dwai said:One of my earlier practices was to meditate on the space between thoughts. Very interesting experience when this “clicked” for me was when one day after asana practice I lay down in corpse pose and the mental chatter started flowing and then floated to the surface and a luminous clarity became apparent underlying the chatter, like a majestic river on which debris was floating.
Yes, this was essentially MY first practice too, in the Nyingma/Dzogchen tradition. IMHO, it might be the most direct practice extant.
29 minutes ago, dwai said:BTW what is the 5th jhana?
Thanks for pointing out “not belonging to a self” - it was a point I intended to make but promptly forgot
This is an explanation of the JHANA, only.
QuoteThe Fifth Jhana: The Base of Infinite Space
Everything that happens in the mind can be thought of as existing “somewhere,” as if in a mental space. You turn your attention away from the characteristics of whatever is in the mind and toward the “space” it occupies. This infinite space is your object of contemplation.
Anything you attend to could be likened to a signal being carried on some medium of communication. You turn your attention away from the signal and toward the carrier wave that conveys it. The mind as a space, medium, channel, or vehicle is your object of awareness.
Equanimity and one-pointedness now mature fully. You find yourself in a realm where all perception of form has ceased. You cannot be disturbed or disrupted from the outside, but the tiniest suggestion of the material senses remain. You ignore them totally; if you turn your attention to any of them, the jhana is lost.
https://www.lionsroar.com/jhanas-taste-of-liberation/
The jhanas are meditative absorptions which have the flavor of enlightened realization. In this case I am referring to the character of the jhana as an analog of enlightened mind, not saying that my daily experience is a "state" which it is not. The primary characteristic in this case is the perception of being in any way a subject in a world of form.
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2 hours ago, dwai said:I agree with Thrangu Rinpoche and Hui Neng, FWIW
There is continuous samadhi interrupted by thoughts - only a few are able to recognize this. Given that, there is no need to try and eliminate thoughts - just not grasping is sufficient.
It is in the space between thoughts most are apt to NOTICE and awaken, IMHO, but the experience of enlightened mind itself is, I agree, a continuous samadhi that has the flavor of (is?) 5th jhana, usually. Arisings in consciousness (including emotion and individual thoughts) never stop, but are lessened, and never belong to a "self" or have intrinsic nature, and pass almost immediately like all other phenomena.
The Maharshi quote is an example of direct pointing, not necessarily the end of the path.
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12 hours ago, liminal_luke said:I looked Jana Drakka up and found this video especially inspiring...
Thanks for digging that up. Good times. She was a firecracker!
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Enlightenment is the end of struggle, which also means the end of "self" and identity. This is how enlightenment looked when one of my teachers, the late Jana Drakka, was alive:
Many of the people in the hospice she regularly worked in called her "sir" or "Mr.". It didn't bother her. She was lesbian. If you asked her what her gender was she would say that her body appeared female, but that she HAD no gender identification. When I think of how the struggle of identity ends, she is the primary person I think of and admire, and the reason why I posted anything at all previously.
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4 hours ago, surrogate corpse said:Some folks in this thread have been recommending spiritual detachment from identity as an alternative to transition. What they are recommending—however well-meaning they might be—is torture. How do well-meaning people come to recommend torture? By failing to understand not just gender, but also how it is that attachment to identity causes suffering.
Suppose we accept that giving up attachment to identity is good. (I'm sympathetic!) Transition is, for people like you and me, a precondition for doing so. In other words: "yeah, yeah, sure, you can be non-binary... after estrogen"
Just so we are clear, I am NOT recommending detachment as an alternative to transition. Suffering and asceticism are not a fixture of the Buddhist path (speaking more specifically) which is why it is called the "middle way". I am also not advocating for or against transitioning - that choice rightly belongs to the individual. The path to understanding necessarily INCLUDES the struggle with identity in its many guises and I applaud anyone who makes headway on it.-
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6 minutes ago, dwai said:This reminds me of another thread from another time -
Wow... thanks for that, friend. I have never heard of that text before. What a corker! Deep dharma there. Adding it to my reading list.
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1 hour ago, forestofemptiness said:Once when all the monks were out picking tea leaves the Master addressed Yangshan: "All day as we were picking tea leaves I have heard your voice, but I have not seen you yourself. Show me your original self."
Yangshan thereupon shook the tea tree.
The Master: "You have attained only the function, not the substance."
Yangshan: "I do not know how you yourself would answer the question."
The Master was silent for a time.
Yangshan: "You, Master, have attained only the substance, not the function."
Master Guishan: "I absolve you from twenty blows!"
Of course, no practice enlightens. Confusing a practice with illumination is problematic, but to practice by resting in awareness, where the mind is empty and still, IS cessation (nirodha), the 3rd Noble Truth. There is no difference between the mind where it is still and enlightened mind, even though there is no realization of it. It is only re-identification with the contrived thoughts of the mind and becoming a subject again that cessation is lost.
Therefore, in Maharshi's case, he presents the very essence of practice in many traditions.
As Dogen would say:
QuoteWhen you practice zazen with the whole body, speech, and mind, even for a short time, the entire universe immediately becomes the posture of Buddha. The whole sky immediately becomes enlightenment. It enables all beings everywhere, in Heaven, on Earth, or even in Hell, to increase their dharma joy. This dharma joy is their original nature. It enables all beings to be Buddhas. It renews their awakening. - Dogen
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43 minutes ago, forestofemptiness said:So all essence, no function?
Honestly, I’m not sure what you mean by “essence“ or “function“ in this case. Could you elaborate? 🙏 -
17 minutes ago, Nungali said:Is that 'we' directed at those with that belief system , or is it one of those 'all encompassing Daobums we' , that is supposed to include me ( and Maddie and the wild diverse collections of people here ) ?
The general negative answer would be ; ' because 'we' dont have the same beliefs that you do .'
The positive answer would be ; ' Because some people hold the 'white school' view that existence, incarnation and life are positive affirmed spiritual choices and suffering is alleviated by different means .
To assume or insist everyone should have the same belief, or be following the same ideals creates that very situation where people like Maddie are being judged ... not due ( directly
) to transgenderphobia but due to a projection of where her spiritual path and direction 'should ' be .I see I have been unskillful with my language here.
What I am saying is: Identity for everyone I have known, including myself, is not a fixed position. If we carry around an identification that doesn't make us happy, why wouldn't we drop that identification or even choose a new one that better represents how we feel we are in the world? Maddie has gone from soldier to acupuncturist. That in itself would be a major change in identification.
The other part of my post was in reference to what you were saying in YOUR post.
QuoteThe 'divine androgyne' concept . ' a blend of male and female or by being neither male nor female '
I support what Maddie has chosen (and have said so privately) and the right of anyone to choose to present in the world as they wish.
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55 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:i am not quite sure what are you trying to say here Sterling-sensei: is your own tradition of Buddhism quite equal to Pastafarianism?
Even a blind pig occasionally finds a truffle.
I would argue that any dharma (using an all-inclusive definition - see dharma definitions here) is a vehicle to enlightenment. All experiences in life are constantly pointing out the dualities and attachments of our existence. Really, for someone who has realized that every moment is a teaching, and is paying deep attention to experience, no tradition is really necessary, though it might be the "long" way 'round.
As a child, long before meeting Eastern religion/philosophy, I had already been made aware that there was a fundamental problem with my ideas about reality. I think this is common amongst those who seek.
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15 hours ago, Nungali said:I see it differently .... and I am often at odds with jadespear .... if I read past the reactive stuff , he isnt saying just
" don´t believe that transwomen are women"
he clearly said ( a qualification, as i read it )
" Spiritually speaking - no one is either. " and I take that to mean some believe, on a 'spiritual level' we are neither men or women , that is only on the material level.
The 'divine androgyne' concept . ' a blend of male and female or by being neither male nor female '
The Dao, the "I AM" and Buddhas are genderless. Most of my teachers (and me) would say (or have said) that they also have had substantial, or complete reductions in identification with their bodies or other identity constructs. I can see now that gender, for me anyway, was always shades of grey.
Why wouldn't we, living in Samsara, drop the walls of various types of identification to alleviate our suffering?
The Samantamukha Sutra has an interesting exposition on the topic of emptiness, including specifically of sex and gender, for those interested:
Very unpopular opinions
in General Discussion
Posted
By "trance" he means jhana. Movement through them is shifting attention from the outside world... it is definitely gradual, but not related to awakening, since the jhanas are passing states, unlike stream-entry and enlightenment.
Me too! You could likely do it too, since you have been a meditator for so many years, and probably already rest, at least briefly, if not for longer periods, in shikantaza.
More on the jhanas here from Leigh Brassington, arguably our finest contemporary instructor on the topic:
https://www.leighb.com/jhanas.htm
Give it a try! Free instruction on the first one or two:
https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/
This sounds eerily familiar somehow.
This is an interesting assertion. At face value, I don't think I can agree with you. How about some definitions in plain language on these. What is cessation of in/out breathing, and how is it an attainment? What is the "fifth limb", or a "survey sign". At face value it sounds like you are saying that if we stop breathing we are enlightened, but I am sure this isn't what you are intending to share.