solxyz

But what if we treat philosophy and discourse not as a journey through which we hope to arrive at a distanced truth, but simply as an expression of the truth or the situation that is at hand (and an expression of the truth that is continually emerging)? What if, to the extent that we have questions, we do not expect to answer them, but merely articulate the mystery in which we find ourselves and possible ways of regarding this mystery?

How do you see this working?

I do a 3-day water fast once a month (ideally - i dont push myself if I am feeling overtaxed in some other area of life), and I love it. I take dandelion root tea while fasting, and I strongly recommend doing something to keep your bowels moving if anyone is going to do an extended fast: enemas or take a psyllium/clay/senna combination. a good shit on the second day changes the whole experience from lethargic and cranky to nearly ecstatic. I dont think that I have an "addiction to food" or any other unhealthy emotional issues around food, and I dont find that the fasting brings up any special feelings, but I definitely do find that the fasting gives a good boost to my meditation practice. I dont know how to describe it any further; the specific insights are different each time, but it really seems to move things along.

Thanks all for your responses. I wanted to respond to something that paul walter said, because this seems to be a common idea in the anti-philosophy camp: "All language is an approximation, therefore an illusion, therefore a lie vis a vis lived experience." This is only true if we take a representational model of language and symbol. If we treat our symbols not as a substitute world but as one mode of participating in the world - a way of expressing ourselves - then I think that changes things. When a plant grows into its appropriate form, it does not regard this form as a definition of reality and then become stuck in its own definition. The plant is just living out its nature. Similarly, symbolic expression seems to be part of the human form of life. Of course it can become a trap, but it can also be an enlightened activity. Also, discovering the ultimate is not the only goal that we have in life. We also want to develop understandings of a lot of relative phenomena, and for this theory can be quite helpful. That said, in general I quite agree with Paul's assessment of where philosophy gets a lot of people and its predicament in "western culture." In my own life, I was a lot more interested in the stuff when I was younger. I was completely lost and it seemed to offer me a way of orienting myself and figuring out what the world and life was about. I think it really did help me with that up to a point. If someone had show me how to cultivate back in those days, would I have needed philosophy? I dont know, but I guess part of the point is that it was a teacher to me when no-one else was. Also it did bring about some major shifts in how I approached the world and even what I am doing with my life. For example, discovering the phenomenology and its application in investigating and understanding plants changed my attitude toward the material world and led me, indirectly, into my current profession. Now that I know what Im about and have had some direct experience of the ultimate, I tend to look at it all and say "so what," but still I think its fun to get into once in a while, coordinating grand systems and visions with poetic and evocative sentences, trying to bring forward a meaning that is worthy of the human soul.

Yeah, I agree with Gold here. In the words of Heidegger: "Being is in every case the Being of some entity." I think this cuts against the Hegelian view being put forward by Erdweir that there is a an unseen or unobjectified consciousness which is the reality of that what is seen. The Ultimate, whether we call it Being, Consciousness, God, etc, is not at all a thing. Accordingly, we cannot even say that it is. Simply we have the Isness of the world. I think this is one of the key meanings of "non-duality" - that the Ultimate, the Truth is not distinct from the simplicity of the things that are. In Buddhism, a distinction is often made between awareness and consciousness, where consciousness is a reification of awareness, an attempt to make fundamental knowing into something or something that is happening, in order to belief that there is someone who is knowing. So if consciousness is the sense of being an observer, this can indeed become a phenomenon, but awarenss is just the great Mystery. Incidentally, here are Heidegger's definitions of "phenomenon" and "phenomenology": The Greek expression phainomenon is derived from the verb phainesthai, which signifies "to show itself." Thus phainomenon means that which shows itself, the manifest. Phainesthai itself is a middle-voiced form which comes from phaino - to bring to the light of day, to put in the light. ... Thus we must keep in mind that the expression 'phenomenon' signifies that which shows itself in itself. "to let that which show itself be seen from itself in the very way in which it shows itself from itself."

Actually, I think phenomenology is quite profound in that it offers a complete healing and integration of the subject-object dichotomy in which neither pole is made dominant. As Erdweir says, phenomenology is strongly connected with existentialism, and existentialism begins with Kierkegaard's reaction to Hegel's idealism. Hegel's vision in which all is comprehended and harmonized seems untrue to the human situation. In phenomenology we are finding the meaning as we go. To answer the question that we began with, what is a phenomenon and what is the phenomenological method of investigation: The phenomenological method is basically about understanding a phenomenon (whatever you want: a plant, a weather pattern, a feeling, a person) in its own terms. The important point is to avoid constructing a theory which explains the phenomenon - which is the basic approach of modern science, but rather to observe the phenomenon until its inherent meaning is recognized. In psychology, for example, one does not jump to theories about drives, repressions, or whatever else. One just experiences and explores a personality until it becomes apparent who that person is or what they are about. The idea that we see here is that the world and its phenomena are inherently meaningful, each thing speaking it own language that we have to come to understand. Heidegger attempts to use this method to approach an understanding of some of the major themes of human life. Reading any serious philosopher will give you a headache until you get into the swing of their terminology and system. Once you do this you will generally be rewarded with an awe-inspiring view of the world and humanity. This is certainly true for Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. I could never find the patience for Husserl.

hahaha. right on.

A friend once was talking to me about Chogyam Trungpa, and told me this story: Trungpa was giving a lecture, he stopped himself in the middle and said, in his proper English accent, "Oh, sometimes I dont know why I even bother. You're all a bunch of assholes." This thread is making me think about that.

Lets get down to it. 11:33 asked who are the living people who are considered to be enlightened. Other than Orb who offered Adyashanti, everyone has just given evasive non-answers. Of course answering the question is not entirely straightforward, but it is an interesting and relevant thing to compile a little list. Anyone in the Tibetan tradition with the title rinpoche is recognized as enlightened, but that doesnt mean that they really are. Daniel Ingram has recognized himself as enlightened, and if you are serious about getting there yourself, you should definitely check out his book (which is available for free online). He breaks down the practices and experiences in a practical, specific way like no-one else.

The Indic philosophical tradition is extremely rich and nuanced. To really enter into the subtleties and endless possibilities of conciliation and debate between these philosophies would take a lifetime of study. I dont even read Sanskit, and I have read only smatterings of Shankara and Nagarjuna in translation. Since I assume that most of us are in the same boat, we have to ask what we hope to figure out here. That said, when we are looking at these philosophies I think we should keep in mind two possibly distinct issues: 1) what the various philosophers were trying to say/ point to and 2) what they actually managed to say. With #1 we ask: were the various philosophers attesting to different levels of realization? I think the answer to this question is clear. There have undoubtedly been a range of levels of realization on both sides of the Advaita/Buddhist split, and people of many levels of realization have expressed themselves in philosophy. Also it is clear to me that there have been fully realized people on both sides of this split. Therefore in the mouths of the best, these two philosophies refer to the same. They are attempts to refer to enlightened experience / awakened reality. Once again there is a great deal of subtlety in this philosophy. To really understand what a person is communicating one has to be able to listen to that persons particular use of words, and the way these words might point past limitations of any particular stance. If you dont do this, then you are lacking the sympathy to an ability to enter into anothers mode of expression. But since this is not a Sanskrit forum, I dont know how far we can really go in this direction. As for #2 we ask whether either philosophy is actually a better description of awakened reality. Once again I think we have to be mindful of the subtlties of the actual philosophies before jumping to any conclusions here. But here is my crude observation. Everyone is making an Absolute denial. Advaita phrases this denial in terms of ontology. It speaks of an ontological Absolute and denies that it has any form, etc, etc. The philosophy xabir is presenting simply switches to an epistemological question and then makes its denial, saying "no essence of self or phenomena can be found." This may seem to be a more complete denial, but I think there will prove to be an infinite regress of possible questions and levels at which to deny absolutely. Here I will take the next step up and deny that any explicit position can ever be a full and final description of awakened reality. Once we agree on that, question #2 evaporates and we are left only with our answer to question #1.

erdweir is confusing UG with Jiddu.

Abida Parveen. Absolutely essential. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH8BgubvXWM

I dont know what any native americans were thinking on this subject. I know that in a lot of other cultures where people dont like having their picture taken, it is believed that the picture can then be used to work spells on them, like a kind of voodoo doll. For myself I think there is a deeper meaning to the soul-stealing of photography. Photo taking has an inherently desacralizing effect. If youre in church you wouldnt go snapping photos during the eucharist. If you do, you are incredibly insensitive and you are not present in the communion at all. Relatedly, cameras offer a mechanistic perspective on the world. By having these mechanistic representations of myself created - representations in which no person needed to discover and express the way that I am in the world - I feel that people are increasingly conceiving of me in a materialistic way. That sounds very strong and overstated; I dont go around worrying about this all day, but having my picture taken feels like an imposition, like the other person wants to take a peice of me away, and to do that they are willing to break off our relationship for a little while. That said, I love looking at pictures of my friends. Its fascinating to me.

recognizing that this is very subtle territory, we should consider the possibility that different people are using terms in different ways. when guruSwamiG says that the Self is a "Formless Constant" that might be refering to the formless realms, or that might be saying that the background is utterly without qualities - that it is not a thing at all - that it is empty. i dont really know what this particular guru-swami is getting at, but if you really want to talk to people about their meditation (to help them or to learn from them) you have to be able to figure out what their actual experiences and discoveries are, and not get caught up by the fact that they are using a different philosophical framework to communicate those experiences. also i think it might be helpful for your understanding, and possibly for your practice, to engage with this true self language and see the ways that it can be pointing to the same thing. once again i refer you to that daniel ingram chapter, not because i want to hear a refined refutation of true self, but because i think it might open up your understanding of perspectives.

I was looking through this thread a little more closely, and I think I understand the reason for mikaelz strong opinions. He thinks that advaitins are all just hanging out in absorption states. This is quite naive and shows an inadequate understanding of that tradition. Actually I also have concerns that many practices coming out of vedanta and the yogas tend to make an inadequate distinction between absorption and liberation, and cause some people to get stuck in absorption. But this is clearly not all that is going on. The distinction can be discerned in Silicon's statement: "Moreover, not even Advaita teaches a "merging" of the Jivatman and Paramatman! It is simply a process of realizing the ever-present unity than actuating some new phenomena like "merging'." That is an expression of true liberating insight! Have you spent some time trying Ramana Maharshi's self inquiry technique? It is not about absorption. Give it a shot. I also refer you to Daniel Ingram's chapter on "No-self vs True-self." It explains the validity of true self philosophy from a buddhist perspective and with a full understanding of impermanence. It is even posted on your friend's website: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/200...-true-self.html

I think the point we should keep in mind is that there have been fully Realized/Liberated masters in most traditions, certainly in Hindu Advaita as well as in Buddhism. Now what does it mean that they express their realization in a different philosophy? Maybe some of them are better philosophers than others and they expressed their realization more accurately. Maybe these are just different ways of pointing toward a very subtle and paradoxical truth and the two philosophies really come to the same thing. Either way it doesnt matter much. The important thing is that we do the meditation and get ourselves Liberated.

I dont understand why people are being so critical of MorePieGuy's intention. Leaving aside the tangle of social commitments in order to cultivate is a traditional path, and one that is recognized for leading to great spiritual development. Just because he doesnt want to live the kind of life that most of us are living doesnt necessarily mean that he is "running away." Maybe he just knows himself well enough to know his calling and now he is taking responsibility, creating for himself a path that is not easily provided in this society. My advice is to look into seasonal work. If you work hard all summer, with little to no time for cultivation, you can have enough money to get through the rest of the year without any job. Then you can live most anywhere you want. I was doing this for many years, working in the fishing industry in alaska. Another good option is fighting forest fires.

does a bear shit in the woods?

The Po is responsible for our life instincts, the things we can do when we are born. It is roughly equivalent to the egyptian Ka soul and the etheric body in anthroposophy. The Hun is roughly equivalent to the egyptian Ba and the astral body in anthroposophy.

In my qigong lineage we practice visualizing the light-body bone by bone (I believe this practice is known to some here as the white skeleton) while shaking. All you shakers out there might try it out. It spices things up in a certain way, helps locate blockages, and trains us to channel and augment the shaking energy with visualizations. I like to do a basic shake for about 10 minutes to loosen up and get things flowing, then do the visualization for about 20 mins, then finish with a free shake - just getting into the energy and following its lead.

hi everyone, i have been lurking here for about a year and a half, and i think this is the greatest discussion forum around. there is a great wealth of knowledge, experience, and wisdom here. my primary practice for the past year of two has been a form of vipassana as taught by daniel ingram (whose book, "mastering the core teachings of the buddha," available for free online, i cant recommend highly enough to anyone interested in these subjects). im happy to say that i this practice has led me to some fundamental realization. now i have recently begun the kunlun, and its fantastic. i have also dabbled with western magick, tai chi, aikido, a million little things. i am beginning a four year course of study in classical chinese medicine (at the NCNM). As part of this program i will practicing two traditions of chi gong - emei sage, and another whose name i cant remember right now, but im just begining, so i dont have anything to say about them yet. -sol