thuscomeone

The Diamond Stutra and the Avatamsaka stura say there are infinite realms. I don't think this is that important. The infinite in expressed in the finite, just as the finite is in the infinite. One in all, all in one.

Oh but it is important. Even saying that there are infinite "realms" supposes that there is something called a realm which is going to be exist eternally. Thus once again eliminating infinite possibility.

Infinity is so mind-bogglingly immense that at some point realms will probably be replaced by something else which we cannot even imagine.

The finite is the infinite in the sense that it is one of the forms of the infinite. But if the infinite persisted as that one form forever, it would not be infinite.

I respect your explanation, but I'm not sure it gets at what I'm saying yet. You're still limiting something which is supposedly infinite. You're saying that this void has seven planes. Well why wouldn't it have an infinite number of planes, most of them unimaginable to us? I think this results from an inability to really understand what the word "infinite" means -- the immensity of it.

Can't you see the absurdity of saying that something which has infinite possibilities has basically, when it comes down to it, only three major planes? You're attaching the finite to the infinite in order to make some sort of sense and order out of it.

I haven't been on this forum in a while, but I was thinking about something related to buddhism today and it struck me as odd. I just finished reading Moby Dick and it has changed my view on many things. Especially in regard to man's quest for ultimate knowledge. There is a passage in there that is so profound...when melville describes Queequeg's chest tattoos and says that even though his heart beat against them, he could not decipher what they meant. Just beautiful.

Anyway, there is the idea of emptiness in Buddhism. The infinite void that is capable of infinite manifestation. Yet Buddhists claim basically a finite number of types of realms. The animal realm, the human realm, the deva realm, the hell realm. And these same types of realms seem to cycle eternally for Buddhists. This is what strikes me as strange. If the void is capable of infinite manifestation, why, according to buddhists, are there only basically six types of realms? If this infiniteness of the void were true, there should be realms that we cannot even imagine. If it were true, how would we ever really be able to limit it and say "I know for certain that I'm going to be reborn as only one of six types of things after I die." See the absurd logic? So Buddhists, how do you explain this apparent discrepancy?

Not saying that I don't believe in some force which is capable of manifestation. I do. And I personally feel that whatever it is, it has allowed for man's evolution. But nowhere is it written that man will live on forever as an eternal manifestation of this void, as Buddhists seem to think. What comes after man we may not even be able to imagine.

Eh...

 

d.o. is not merely words brother. Otherwise it wouldn't have been the Buddhas realization which happened after mastering the jhana of neither perception nor non-perception. This shows that d.o. is far from merely words, which is only the case in the beginning.

I am hesitant at this point to speak about what the Buddha taught or didn't teach. It's dangerous territory to depend for your truth on what the Buddha or anyone else may or may not have said. I only speak from my own experience.

d.o. is a finger pointing to a truth which doesn't depend on d.o. You are desperately clinging to d.o. and can't see past it, even if you won't admit it. In a sense, you are more concerned with talking about d.o. than being, actually living as, what d.o. points to. If it were the latter, you would see that "d.o" has no bearing on what actually is and you wouldn't cling to it.

You don't understand "emptiness is form."

How can the eye see itself?

You think you know the freedom of suchness, but you have no idea.

LOL! There's no beyond what is already beyond.

 

As the Buddha said,

 

"Dependent Origination is the all, and to see dependent origination is to see me."

 

You are reifying some experience. Are you not?

Not reifying anything. Not saying there is something or nothing. Saying that there is obvious presence, but that presence isn't a "thing." It can't be described.

To truly see dependent arising is to see that dependent arising is just mere words. Not truth. That is what d.o. points to.

I didn't need to repeat if you had realized the implication of views and how the realization of twofold emptiness results in liberation.

 

And the Buddha didn't need to teach tens of thousands of verses and pages about emptiness, if emptiness doesn't liberate sentient being.

Emptiness does liberate. As skillful means. Never said it doesn't. But you don't really know what emptiness means/what it is pointing to.

Which is an empty flow of beginningless d.o.

 

Please... don't let your mind b.o. this.

Uh-uh. d.o. is not the answer.

I'm sorry, but emptiness already transcends neither perception nor non-perception, both logically and intuitively.

 

When I say "see's one's unborn nature, including all else".. it's merely a figure of speech... which should be quite obvious.

You too are stuck on endlessly repeating emptiness and d.o., just like xabir, and never going beyond.

Not entirely... only as it's utilized in logic and reason.

 

Emptiness and Rigpa are not really the same, but not really different either. As Rigpa is basically the awareness of self emptiness directly.

Not even an awareness of "emptiness." Just leaving things as they are.

I just popped in for a second...

 

I just want to say that unconditional love has no reference, but compassion always references the equal emptiness of all relativity; the people, places and things...

 

Unconditional love is just that state of bliss that see's everything's unborn nature directly, including oneself.

It doesn't see any sort of "nature" and assign that nature to things at all. It doesn't see "unborn" or anything else. That's called ignorance. It just sees.

Nagarjuna is advocating not clinging to intellectual views about emptiness.

 

Eckhart Tolle is clearly eternalist - "Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature."

Emptiness is an intellectual view. It is not absolute truth. It is just words.

Xabir, to put it within terms you can understand, you haven't yet realized what rigpa is.

The realization of emptiness cannot be clung to. Emptiness negates existents without asserting non-existence or any positions.

 

I did not conflate non-conceptual presence with "I am", I simply state that it is Eckhart Tolle's view that Presence is the eternal background self.

 

I'm surprised you didn't read Tolle.

Yes it most definitely can be clung to. Otherwise, why would nagarjuna advocate not clinging to it?

Well, you seem to think that anyone who isn't talking within your paradigm of emptiness is an eternalist.

Eckhart Tolle still clings to I AM.

And you still cling to emptiness and d.o. Congratulations.

And you tell me I'm too focused on maps.

You wrongly conflate non-conceptual presence with "I am."

I didn't say there was something or there was nothing. Again, the middle way. If you actually took the time to read my last post, you would see this.

Careful, eckhart tolle may be much more enlightened than you and you might not even know it.

I understand the implications of attachment to views as it relates to the four noble truths. Can't say the same for you.

Again, you don't understand. I'm not talking about cultivation of a thoughtless state. Far from it. This is your wrong assumption.

You don't even know what the seer/observer is, do you xabir? It's attachment to the content of thought. Not to replace one thought with another. Thought is what observes/interprets/distorts.

If you try and accuse me of clinging, you're wrong. Like I've said, there isn't nothing because one can obviously see presence. But there isn't something because all "things" are created by thought and have no basis.

It's a much more subtle version of the middle way.

When realization of twofold emptiness arises, the views of inherency is dissolved, leaving unreified experiencing of suchness without constructing a seer and something seen, as described in kalaka sutta.

 

Before the realization however, the views of inherency is not dissolved, and the practitioner desperately cling to a non-conceptual state of perception, saying that this is 'suchness', and fearing to go into concepts. In truth, they are still clinging to inherent views, which they try to remedy through 'non-conceptuality' but this is not resolving the issue really.

 

As for you... I don't think you are really clear about the implication of views on daily experience. Why does a normal, deluded sentient being not see this? It is simply because of views, clinging to selfhood, body, subject, object, etc, as being inherent...

 

They don't verbalize or define their attachment, they don't say 'I am my body' but they do cling to that body-sense. They don't say 'I am' but they cling to the sense of self. They cling to something unchanging and permanent due to the view of inherency.

You have not realized the meaning of emptiness. As is clear by your words.

This is not clinging to a self. This is the fact of what is before the self -- and it isn't permanent, impermanent, empty, non-empty. It's a fact. It's just being.

Now you are just coming across as nihilistic. Now you are saying that there is literally nothing here? No body, no mind?

If you want to say that you could, maybe "like water" would be better.

 

This was even hinted at in the buddhist story of the girl seeking enlightenment, she was looking at the reflection of the moon in a pale of water before the bottom broke out. Then she looked at the moon.

 

Water is not any particular form yet all of them.

My take on that particular story is that she was always only looking at the reflection of the moon (her thoughts) and never the actual moon (actual reality).

Xabir, you are the girl in this story.

You are clinging to a 'something beyond words'. Be careful not to fall into the 'disease of non-conceptuality'.

 

Via wisdom, I abandon clinging to words and wordless but am free to use them.

 

I do not point to more words, but the empty and luminous nature of reality... of mind, thoughts, and sense perceptions.

No I am not clinging at all. I am recognizing suchness, the undeniable fact of what is. Clinging is not in that suchness. Clinging is in defining that suchness. This is what you fail to understand.

Don't flatter yourself, buddy. Even now you are desperately clinging to words.

Not wanting to sound ass-like, but word for word count, between mine and yours in this thread, you are still waay ahead.

Sure. But I'm pointing to something which is beyond words. You, like xabir, no offense, are just pointing toward more words.

Just to stress home a point:

 

Both sutric and tantric traditions have the same goal of final enlightenment, the state of fully perfected enlightenment. (However the tantra) is distinctive for superior means of attaining (that goal). They are the superiority of view free from ignorance, the superiority of meditation with many skillful means, the superiority of activities of no hardship, and the person of sharp intellect...

 

The Characteristic Causation (sutric) Yana ascertains that (a) the ultimate nature, the absolute truth (is) free from elaborations of eight extremes, but it does not realize the nature of the union of the ultimate sphere and primordial wisdom, as it is. (Tantra,) having dispelled (that ignorance), realizes the nature of the union of the ultimate sphere and primordial wisdom - so tantra is not ignorant of the view of the ultimate nature. ( The Characteristic Causation Yana ascertains phenomena, the things of relative truth, as the nature of interdependent arising like a magical apparition (maya), but it is ignorant because of not yet having ascertained phenomena as the Buddha-bodies and primordial wisdoms, (but having ascertained them as just) impure like magical apparitions. Vajrayana tantra ascertains (that all are): the play of the Buddha-bodies and primordial wisdoms, the meaning of non-duality of the ultimate sphere and primordial wisdom, the non-duality of the two truths and the supreme ultimate body. So tantra is superior in being free from ignorance.

 

The contemplations of tantra is superior because of two stages: the skillful means of the development stage and the wisdom of the perfection stage. In the Characteristic Causation Yana there is no path to attain enlightenment which does not abandon the object of desire, whereas in tantra, having taken the object of desire, without abandoning, as the path (of training) which protects the mind-consciousness easily and blissfully, one becomes able to attain the state of Vajradhara in this very lifetime with this single body. - - Pema Ledrel Tsal

 

 

Also, this, from Nagarjuna:

 

"We state that whatever is dependent arising, that is emptiness.

This is dependent upon convention.

That itself is the middle path."

 

Dependent arising explains all the aspects of the relative world, for it details the process of causation, hence the ontology of the world.

 

Emptiness is the only possible description of ultimate truth, for it demonstrates relativity and provides a sort of anti-theory on which the rational faculty can focus.

 

"The whole of Nagarjuna's philosophy is dependent on convention, for it all presupposes the perception of everyday things and their phenomenal reality. It is vital that one following his philosophy understand that it, every bit as much as the things it describes, is relative. Dependent Arising and Emptiness are relative to each other, and both are relative to the perceived world. They thus constitute the middle path. One must remember Dependent Arising would be no more proper a description of ultimate truth than Emptiness, and vice versa, else either materialism or nihilism would result. Likewise, one must find a middle ground between theorizing, and refraining from doing so, as demonstrated by the Buddha on certain occasions." (anonymous comment)

 

 

 

From the Visudhimagga:

 

Misery only does exist, none miserable,

No doer is there; Nothing save the deed is found.

Nirvana is, but not the man who seeks it.

The Path exists, but not the traveler on it.

Way too many words. Better to just demonstrate it.

Yes there is no independent essence whatsoever.... just the magic of luminous emptiness, the shapes, colours, taste, etc, but nothing solid anywhere.

Let me explain this to you in the context of suffering. When you are attempting to realize dependent arising or emptiness, you are trying to get somewhere. You are trying to get away from ignorance and towards knowledge. But ignorance and knowledge, aka dependent arising and independence, are just concepts. They don't exist in actuality. So when you want to go from ignorance to knowledge, or from pain to pleasure, that is the root of suffering. That gap which is created by attaching to concepts. In that gap is all fear, stress, etc. In that gap is also "rebirth." In that gap is also time. Without the gap there is no time. This is why it is so important to distinguish sems from rigpa in dzogchen. You are caught in sems (conceptual mind).

This is much much deeper than what you think I mean by non-conceptuality.

There is no emptiness. There is no dependent arising. Just as there is no eyes, ears, tongue, etc... (heart sutra)

But is this so only because things are empty and dependently arisen?

Empty, thus not true.

 

There is nothing relative that can be pinned down as a truth.

So is emptiness truth? Is dependent arising truth?

Nope, wrong. It means that the state of rigpa is beyond concepts, including "emptiness" and "dependent arising."