dwai

43 minutes ago, forestofemptiness said:

 

But this is a false duality. The presence of the words doesn't hide or impact the background, and the lighted background is needed for the words to appear. Nor does one need to eliminate or make the words go away. The words depend on the background, but the background transcends any and all words. 

This is akin to how before one knows what a mirage is, it

is mistaken for water. Once it becomes known what a mirage is, a mirage still appears to be a body of water from the distance,  but one understands it is just a mirage. 

On 4/21/2024 at 10:58 PM, Small Fur said:

let yourself be a great student and observer to the life within yourself; to not fear to uncover, discover and adventure across your own ravines and mountains; for somewhere in its inner depths lies the Mysterious Passage- a dimension without place, an entry without lock, a recognition of the true self within the Great Tao Yin.

It is ever-present, but sadly overlooked because people always look for some object to latch onto. It’s like the absentminded person who’s wearing his glasses and looking for it outside somewhere…how do you know you have eyes? 
 

From James Swartz 

There are so many ways to explain this - but it requires a truly open mind to understand/realize. If one’s mind is preoccupied by concepts and ideas, then it cannot truly accept the knowledge (indirect though it may be). If it cannot accept the knowledge, how can it realize? 

2 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

ok, we have heard that many a time which does not take into account evolution of the soul,  (although and granted the Self, which could be said to be the Soul of the soul does not evolve) anyway we could say all beings will realize such by the end of the cosmic cycle, ready or not.  

What soul? 

On 4/17/2024 at 9:20 AM, idiot_stimpy said:

 

Causal - I am undifferentiated awareness. I see thoughts arising within the space of awareness. Awareness will be there when thoughts cease. I effortlessly exist. I AM.

It is not the I AM, but awareness enveloped in inertia. That which you call “unknown” is the I AM. 

6 hours ago, old3bob said:

all beings will be enlightened per that returning ...

all beings are already enlightened - they just haven’t realized it yet 

7 hours ago, S:C said:

@dwai could you provide us with a translation of 

Quote

Kshanikam - Momentary

Sarvam - Everything

So the Buddhists say - "Everything is momentary" (impermanence)

Khalu - Verify

idam - This 

Brahma - Brahman (the ground of being)

Advaitins say - "Everything is verily Brahman"  (Permanence)

The two seem mutually exclusive. But are they? Everything is certainly momentary/temporary, but does that mean Brahman is also fleeting and temporary? This can be understood by the statement, "Samsara (everything) is Nirvana (liberation), and Nirvana (liberation) is Samsara (everything)."

The Advaitins say that "everything" is perceived as separate, ephemeral objects because the knowledge of Brahman (Pure Consciousness) is not realized. When the realization occurs that all things appear and disappear in Brahman alone, then the confusion is dispelled once and for all. 

On 4/16/2024 at 3:30 PM, forestofemptiness said:

 

It is interesting that Advaitins have to contend with the idea that things are impermanent and constantly changing, whereas Buddhists have to contend with the idea that things are enduring and lasting! I suppose it depends on how one tunes the mind.

 

So interesting. Yet it is the Buddhists who say “kshanikam kshanikam sarvam kshanikam” and the advaitins who say, “sarvam khalu idam brahma” 

What is the sound of One Hand Clapping?

16 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

in general when the modern mystics try to share, they undermine it by not providing definitions and by not providing concrete examples. While the intent is commendable, the message is fuzzy. If you want us to understand what you write you should explain that in your mind a thing is not an object. because it is kinda clashes with a dictionary. Then, pls provide an example.

Those who are ready to understand will do so  

16 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

like here.  i am very interested in what @stirling says but i have to ask him for an example 'how the emptiness feels like, what do you see?' otherwise i dont know what he is trying to say.

It feels like no thing  

2 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake

10 minutes ago, idiot_stimpy said:

 

Those who have not seen and experienced from the absolute viewpoint can only objectify it. But even those who have seen and experienced from the absolute viewpoint must objectify it to talk about it, as words are objects and as you describe "...it can never become an object."

 

 

 

That’s the irony - everyone is always “experiencing” that absolute. The misunderstanding  about what *it* is, is what causes the aforementioned confusion. 
 

PS - I wrote “experiencing” in quotes because I there’s  not really experiencing “it” per se - all experience is because of it. So the old question of “how does one know one has eyes?” is applicable here. 

Why is the Two Reality model so difficult to reconcile?

The problem stems from the following perspective -

As beings operating inside one of the realities (relative reality level), we are used to using the subject-object framework to operate. What is the subject-object framework? You, the subject, experience phenomena (objects) - things are created, they are destroyed, living beings are born, and then they die; there might be attributes of nature that exist at a larger timescale than our limited presence in the phenomenal world, but we see those too change and transform (dramatically sometimes) - rivers that have flowed for thousands of years might run dry, mountains might collapse due to tectonic movements in the earth's crust, and so on. Given this, you (and by *you* I mean all of us) operate continuously as a subject relative to objects you experience. In such a scenario, the possibility of a Reality outside the scope of this phenomenal world seems unfathomable. Indeed, when we are using language to communicate this information, it adds to the confusion even more. We are taking phenomenal objects (words, thoughts, language itself) to try and articulate something that lies outside the remit of phenomena.

The "other" reality, one that is often called the Absolute Reality, is the one that stands without a second, or in other words, is not affected by the appearance or disappearance of objects. What is such a reality? Referring to it as a "thing" is a language limitation - because it is not a *thing*. Why is it not a thing? Because it can never become an object. It is pure objectless consciousness - the ground of all things. How is it the ground of all things? Because all things (objects) appear and disappear in it. 

The problem is a category mistake. You seek to understand it as an object—expect to see/study its properties when it doesn't have any. But it is the very thing that enables you to seek, observe, and know. 

9 hours ago, Tommy said:

Please do not take offense.

That is how you see it. Ying and yang. Your opinion. That is fine.

Yes, an Eastern concept. It seems that you have adopted it. That is fine too.

Heat expands, Yes, and cold contracts. But cold is the lack of heat. Opposite? Without light is darkness??

Gravity attracts as a force and is everywhere a person is. To create a force to push one away from the earth is not a natural force like gravity. So not opposite. Not really yin nor yang there.

No offense taken, nor given. 

I'm merely trying to show you that these are metaphysical cosmological concepts - there's no woo-woo involved here. 

9 hours ago, Tommy said:

 

In magnetism, there is a north pole and a south pole. No real monopoles.

There are negative charges by itself and positive charges by them selves.

It is however called electro-magnetism. Weird??

However, there is matter but have not found antimatter in the same quantities.

See, just examples. Yin and yang is where you wish to see it.

Or one could say, that yin-yang is present at relative levels across the spectrum. I'd seen a very nice illustration of how yin-yang works in progressively smaller scales - some may call it a series of differentials. 

9 hours ago, Tommy said:

 

No, nothing to believe or dis-believe. These are concepts. Things thought up by a person. Understand them if you wish. Not everyone has to understand them. It isn't a requirement for anything. You are hung up on this concept of Yin and Yang. What do they call that? Being hung up on opposites? Duality?? Light and dark?? Right and wrong?? An object is neither right nor wrong unless I think it so?

Yin-yang are not mutually exclusive - they are interrelated. Yin contains the seed of yang, and yang contains the seed of yin. Absolute yang gives rise to Yin. And absolute yin gives rise to yang. The duality is only apparent. 

9 hours ago, Tommy said:

 

Again, please take no offense. I am not here to argue. Like the atheist who believes in a sprit or soul. You can believe whatever you wish. But, to force it upon another is cruel and unusual propaganda. I apologize if this upsets you. It is only meant to present a different point of view.

Not at all - I just felt that you didn't understand the concept, so I thought I'd help elucidate it for you.

5 hours ago, Tommy said:

High to low is system looking for equilibrium. Entropy.

That is yin-yang in play. 

5 hours ago, Tommy said:

 

Yin and yang are Eastern concepts. 

So what?  

5 hours ago, Tommy said:

Heat expand. There is no cold. Only a lack of heat. Gravity attracts and there is no force that pushes apart. 

Heat expands, The principle of expansion is called Yang. Gravity attracts - the principle of attraction is called yin. There can of course be a force that pushes apart - how do you think rockets escape earth’s gravity? 

5 hours ago, Tommy said:

I neither believe in yin and yang nor do I disbelieve. As I said, I like to play in the shallow end. Less headaches.

There is nothing to believe or disbelieve - these are metaphysical concepts - one has to understand them. 
 

11 hours ago, Tommy said:

Motion is a function of change in distance over the change in time. To say it is an interplay of yin and yang is to say there is something that we do not see or feel but confers change in time and space to our lives. Is it wrong or right? I have no idea. Too deep for me, I like to play in the shallow end

What do you call the movement of a fluid from a higher pressure area to lower pressure area?  
 

Yin and yang are always present and accessible to us. We just need to properly attune our senses to see and the intellect to discern. Yin/Yang are not some abstract concepts - heat expands - Yang, cold contracts - yin. Gravity attracts - yin, and so on…

Yin-yang interplay is that substantial and insubstantial are always trying to attain balance. That is constantly underway  at physical, mental, and  spiritual levels. 

11 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

 you should tell us about it, its floating above your right shoulder

shhh...that's a secret UAV

18 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

not bad, you remind me of a brother in law when he was younger. Have had so much fun with that guy,

and you manifested a nice shiny orb,

Do tell about the shiny orb ...

18 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

but I still prefer sweet young ladies.

What a co-incidence, so do I  

The dharma traditions use a 2-truth Reality to reconcile True Nature, which is changeless (or empty depending on the specific path within the dharma family), and the manifest world of phenomena hinged on change.

The model states as follows -

1. There is an absolute reality which is beyond all categories and labels, names and forms, and is ever free, and is beyond space and time (and therefore change). This is our True Nature - pure consciousness. It is existence itself, it is being itself, it is peace/bliss itself.
2. There is a phenomenal world, in which beings (such as you and me) come into existence, live out their lives, and die. This is the world of change - there is nothing permanent about this world except change itself.  This is called the Relative Reality. 

How then can one reconcile the two? If one is true, the other must be false, right? Can there actually be two truths?

The confusion is because we operate in this phenomenal world, and that which is called Absolute Reality isn't apparent at all. So, when we experience all phenomena (basically anything that is subject to change, has a beginning and end is called a phenomenon) - we can't really find anything changeless there.

The confusion occurs as a consequence of looking for a "thing". Absolute Reality is not a thing. 

How then can one recognize/realize this Absolute Reality?

(more later) 

12 hours ago, Tommy said:

Motion is time and space.

One could say that Motion is a consequence of change, and change is the interplay of yin and yang. 

1 hour ago, silent thunder said:

Time does not exist.  It is a human function of memory and comparison.

 

All is unfolding perpetually now.  There is no past or future. 

 

Memory of the past occurs now.  Fantasizing about the future occurs now.  It has never been not now.  Time is the illusory human experience of reconciling memory with the ever shifting unfolding of the co-arising aggregates.

 

It's how we compartmentalize and rationalize what lies beyond the ken of our apparatus' ability to process.

 

Rest as awareness and be what you are, as you are.  Awareness is,  the rest is story time and interpretation.

How serendipitous. I was recently pondering about Time - 

 What is time? When we say we can “observe” time change, Is it really the case? Can we observe time or we infer time by observing phenomena? Is the phenomenon of rotation of the earth around its axis the same as time? Is the revolution of the earth around the sun also the same as time? Time to me seems to be like an “āvařaňa” (a veil) that obscures and obfuscates “the reality” by the way of changes. We presume/impute its existence by observing changes in phenomena.

In that sense, time seems more like māyā imho. It is a veil - it neither exists nor does it not exist - or it is anirvachaniya. When we peer through the changes to find the changeless, is it real? And yet we know that the changeless is unaffected by it, but still even those who have Brahma sakshåtkāra cannot deny it relatively speaking.

1 hour ago, old3bob said:

 

The mind's true nature is a Thing whether dark or bright,  Self is beyond such categories per revealed teachings and true Guru.

There is no THING apart from the Self. 

2 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

 "Mind" per many of Hinduisms revealed teachings does not and can not contain the Self.... for instance and as found in the Chandogya Upanishad and others;  although and granted pure mind  (as a THING) aligns with and serves the Self.  

the mind is not the Self. The Self is not contained in anything, neither space nor time, and certainly not the mind. The Self “contains” everything, in the same way as a TV screen contains images. Everything is an appearance in the Self (pure consciousness). 
 

When we say “ignorance is in the mind”, it means the mind, which is reflected consciousness, assumes it is an independent entity to which the world exists - and it affixes labels and ownership (ego) on the things in the world. This ignorance is what prevents the mind from recognizing itself as an appearance in the Self. Truth is that it is nothing apart from the Self, ignorance is that mind doesn’t realize/know/recognize this. 
 

When we say “enlightenment is in the mind”, it means since the mind is deluded about itself, correct knowledge will enlighten it as to its true nature - aka The Self. 

 

4 hours ago, old3bob said:

it is not that the human ego/mind becomes enlightened per-se, it is that the Self understands that it is not the human ego or vehicle it was identified with, yet it can still use such as an inface with the "world"... so for an eternal or timeless moment(s) Self remembers Self beyond regular memory and is un-stuck or no longer stuck in identification as a particular someone in time and space!     (although an echo of that in the memory of a human being can point  (so to speak) yet that pointer is not the Self since regular memory is  an aspect of the human mind which can not contain or circumscribe the Free Self.

Ignorance is in the mind, enlightenment is also in the mind. The Self was, is, and will forever be free.