Differences between dualism and non-dualism

[Mark Foote]

3 hours ago, dwai said:

 

“all you have to do is turn around and look at your face before you were born!” 

 

Interesting mix of Zen aphorisms.

 

Therefore, …take the backward step of turning the light and shining it back.  Of themselves body and mind will drop away, and your original face will appear.

 

(Eihei Dogen, “Fukan zazengi” Tenpuku version, tr. Carl Bielefeldt, “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, p 176)

 

I can find references to "your face before your parents were born", but they're more recent than the references to "original face".

 

Can I suggest that turning the light and shining it back means turning awareness to the location of awareness itself, to a physical sense of location in space associated with awareness?  

 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point... Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.

 

(“Genjo Koan”, Dogen; tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi.)
 

That last part is where zazen gets up and walks around.

Dual when there's an object of awareness outside of awareness.  Non-dual when awareness moves and everything is incorporated in the location, from one moment to the next.
 

 

 

[Bindi]

3 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Interesting mix of Zen aphorisms.

 

Therefore, …take the backward step of turning the light and shining it back.  Of themselves body and mind will drop away, and your original face will appear.

 

(Eihei Dogen, “Fukan zazengi” Tenpuku version, tr. Carl Bielefeldt, “Dogen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation”, p 176)

 

I can find references to "your face before your parents were born", but they're more recent than the references to "original face".

 

Can I suggest that turning the light and shining it back means turning awareness to the location of awareness itself, to a physical sense of location in space associated with awareness?  

 

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point... Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent.

 

(“Genjo Koan”, Dogen; tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi.)
 

That last part is where zazen gets up and walks around.

Dual when there's an object of awareness outside of awareness.  Non-dual when awareness moves and everything is incorporated in the location, from one moment to the next.
 

 

 

This reminds me of the Daoist reference to turning the light around, I like the explanation given in the video below in the first three minutes (despite the rather disconcerting reference to Osho in the beginning). I didn’t watch any further than this because I’m not interested in practicing such things, I don’t see things like turning the light around as a method but rather as an outcome of following the Way. 
 

 

[Apech]

7 hours ago, dwai said:

In this conversation when you read my words, I become the object. When I read your words, you become the object. Object doesn’t necessarily mean things like “rocks”, “balls” etc. Even a thought in your mind is an object.  So, that is the context in which I use the term “object”. We have to dig a bit deeper than the mere surface of subject-object duality….

 

I object most strongly.

[forestofemptiness]

10 hours ago, Apech said:

Well thank you for your pronouncement but fact it is objects that have no agency -  for instance ‘I throw the ball’ -  I as the subject have agency while the object, the ball does not.

 

 

Agency I think is apparent but illusory. We don't construct our thoughts, feelings, impulses. We don't individually construct our desires and impulses from a set of desires and impulses, they just arise. The decision making process is not apparent--- why we appear to choose one set of impulses over another is a mystery.  We didn't choose whether to be born in a time and place where balls arise, nor to be interested in them. That we even have a body capable of throwing a ball depends on the right set of circumstances. 

 

I think as we look closely (as in prolonged meditation), the appearance of agency, control, or choice begins to vanish. 

[steve]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

I object most strongly.

 

… forcing me to subject

 

Damn you Apech, I was this close!

[steve]

Non-duality can have the effect

of causing subject to object.

There's no need to dissent, 

the Two Truths document

Proves both perspectives correct!

 

 

 

I recently came across this brief article from Ken McLeod in Tricycle, a Buddhist magazine.

I think it is worth a few minutes of time...

 

 

 

Two monks were watching a flag flapping in the wind.
One said to the other, “The flag is moving.”
The other replied, “The wind is moving.”
Overhearing this exchange, Hui-neng said, “Neither flag nor wind is moving; mind is moving.”
(Case 29, The Gateless Gate)

 

Hui-neng is wrong here.

Imagine you are looking at a tree on a windy day. You feel the gusts against your cheeks. You see the leaves shaking and flashing as they twist and turn. You see the branches swaying back and forth. You hear the leaves rustling and the tree creaking. And you are so clear and open that there is no movement, not inside, not outside, not anywhere. Nothing moves.

 

Now imagine that you could experience your thoughts and feelings the same way. They come and they go, but for you there is no movement, none at all. It doesn’t matter what arises—love, anger, need, pride, grief, joy—you experience it, you experience it all, you know it, and yet nothing moves, nothing whatsoever.

It is possible to experience life this way, and when you do, words are utterly useless. This way of experiencing is indivisibly immediate, unfathomably profound, unthinkably simple, and unimaginably ennobling. It must be true!

And thus is born the notion of ultimate truth.

 

Stay with that experience for a few moments. Inside you are as quiet as a pond that lies in the center of a deep forest, a pond that, protected by the trees around it, has been undisturbed by even the slightest breeze for a thousand years. Feel the stillness, the infinitely deep stillness, within you.

 

Because of that stillness, you hear everything. You hear the cry of a baby when it first comes into the world. You hear a young man’s gasp of disbelief and despair when his girlfriend breaks things off. You hear the sobs of fear of a woman stricken by breast cancer. And you hear the rasping breath of those whose time in the world has come to an end. You hear the sufferings and struggles of those brought low by misfortune, bad luck, or their own folly. You hear the cries of pain and hurt of those who are oppressed, exploited, or abused. You hear the pain in the voices of those who have to oppress, exploit, or abuse others. You hear the suffering of the world.

You see and hear others struggle—locked in beliefs, flooded by emotions, or burned to ashes by their worries, their concerns, their obsessions. And it’s all so unnecessary. They don’t know that there is another way. You see that and know that. It must be true!

 

And thus is born the notion of relative truth.

 

Profound, transformative, and liberating experiences are frequently recast as higher or deeper truths. As human beings, we struggle with life, and when we find a way of experiencing life that ends all struggle and suffering, we grasp, we hold, we cling. Nothing is more important. We know that something else is possible. We are different because of it. At least we feel different, so it must be true. We want others to know it, too. But how do you tell them?

 

You put your experience into words, whatever words you can. You come up with ways to explain why this is possible, how it comes about, why it is so important. But these words, these explanations, are, in the end, as relevant as proofs of the existence of God. You can debate and argue all you want—and people have done so for centuries—but these explanations, these systematic conceptualizations, are beside the point. If they don’t help to bring out something of that experience in others, they are at best a waste of time and, at worst a rope with which people tie themselves into knots.

 

There is no ultimate truth. There is no relative truth. These are just notions, ideas. You have not touched cosmic consciousness, the one true reality, the ultimate, the infinite, the totality pure. Those words don’t refer to anything. They are poetry, but people forget that. You’ve experienced something, something profound, and it has changed you. Great. But for goodness’ sake, don’t make a religion out of it. Just live it.

 

[dwai]

1 hour ago, steve said:

 

… forcing me to subject

 

Damn you Apech, I was this close!

We are being subjected to objectionable objections of subjective objectives.  

[Michael Sternbach]

11 hours ago, dwai said:

No. Perception is the domain of the mind. 

 

10 hours ago, stirling said:

 

I'm not Dwai, obviously but I think it is worth dialoguing: There is nothing to perceive something else. Being is perceiving. 

 

This must be incorrect. Atman is synonymously the monad - the individual's innermost core. It mirrors All That Is. Therefore it must have perception. (The All Seeing Eye, the Witness.)

 

And the act of reflection indicates that it has agency as well. The active and the passive.

[Apech]

Etymology[edit]

Ātman (Atma, आत्मा, आत्मन्) is a Sanskrit word which refers to "essence, breath."^{[web 1][web 2][9]} It is derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *h₁eh₁tmṓ (a root meaning "breath" with Germanic cognates: Dutch adem, Old High German atum "breath," Modern German atmen "to breathe" and Atem "respiration, breath", Old English eþian).^{[web 2]}

Ātman, sometimes spelled without a diacritic as atman in scholarly literature,^[10] means "real Self" of the individual,^{[note 1]} "innermost essence."^[11] While often translated as "soul," it is better translated as "self."^{[1][note 2]}

[dwai]

25 minutes ago, Apech said:

Etymology[edit]

Ātman (Atma, आत्मा, आत्मन्) is a Sanskrit word which refers to "essence, breath."^{[web 1][web 2][9]} It is derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *h₁eh₁tmṓ (a root meaning "breath" with Germanic cognates: Dutch adem, Old High German atum "breath," Modern German atmen "to breathe" and Atem "respiration, breath", Old English eþian).^{[web 2]}

Ātman, sometimes spelled without a diacritic as atman in scholarly literature,^[10] means "real Self" of the individual,^{[note 1]} "innermost essence."^[11] While often translated as "soul," it is better translated as "self."^{[1][note 2]}

First of all, there is no freakin' Proto-Indo-European language -- it is an artificially created thing. It is an attempt to fit a flawed linguistic model of a Eurocentric worldview,  hence the entire chain of etymological gymnastics is questionable.

 

The version I like is that root of Atman is from tma, the root of tamas  (darkness/ignorance/inertia). Adding of "A" is the negation of Tamas, so Atman is that which eliminates tamas/darkness/ignorance and so on. Which fits pretty nicely into the Svaprakasha Svarupa (Self-Effulgent, Self-Form) of Atman.

 

 

[Apech]

subject = subject + predicate

 

(pause to reflect and object)

 

I feel that current (on this thread) definitions of Atman (brahman) are abstract.  By this I mean they objectify the Subject and then attempt to get close to it.  They define it in terms of the extinction of what it is not - thought, feelings, perceptions, matter and so on.  They mistake, in my opinion, the subject which is Atman for the process which is yoga (yogas citta vritti nirodha - that is 'union arises from the evaporation of mind disturbance') - which I accept as it is basic to what we are about.

 

The Atman (breath, self) ... spirit? is all.  Let's start there.  the Atman could be described as an infinite continuum of consciousness, because being conscious arises because of consciousness, the Atman has no parts it is continuous and unbroken (no gaps) and there is nothing other than it (infinite).  The Atman as 'self' is the ultimate subject.  There is no other subject, it is as it is of itself independent of any causes or conditions.  The predicate is everything that can be said about the Atman, which ultimately, because it is infinite is every possible name/form which exists, has existed, or has the potential to exist.  An infinite dictionary of terms.

 

So imagine the infinite continuum of consciousness in which there are an infinity of points of reference.  Each acts as an observing self.  Each self looks out at the infinity of the Atman and sees an infinite display of energy and forms.  Then forgetting its own nature falls into seeing these forms as 'other than Atman' and 'other than self'.  So the sky becomes mere sky, earth mere earth, rock just a rock and a tree simply a tree.  Then recalling its source says I must return to the Atman, which is not the things I see but something else, something transcendent and beyond them.  And looking back to the Atman I shall let these appearances dissolve in my quest for the root of my nature which will wake me up from forgetting.

 

But another turns to that one and says 'nah. I am a tantric alchemist' ...' for me the subject = subject + predicate and the world is the the result of the agency of the self.  For me the tree is a living tree and my resolve is to go through life and realise the unity of all and one in everything.  So see you on the other side.'

 

 

 

 

[old3bob]

Grace works

 

[stirling]

1 hour ago, Michael Sternbach said:

This must be incorrect. Atman is synonymously the monad - the individual's innermost core. It mirrors All That Is. Therefore it must have perception. (The All Seeing Eye, the Witness.)

 

And the act of reflection indicates that it has agency as well. The active and the passive.

 

Depends on who you ask:

 

Quote

Atman is a central concept in the various schools of Indian philosophy, which have different views on the relation between Atman, individual Self (Jīvātman), supreme Self (Paramātmā) and, the Ultimate Reality (Brahman), stating that they are: completely identical (Advaita, Non-Dualist),^[2][3]completely different (Dvaita, Dualist), or simultaneously non-different and different (Bhedabheda, Non-Dualist + Dualist).^[4]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ātman_(Hinduism)

 

IMHO for Atman to be labeled correctly (and I have no doubt that it is) it would have to be non-dual as all phantom "things" are, ultimately. There is therefore nothing to perceive as something as separate. Atman simply IS... is simply BEINGNESS... is simply "perceiving" phenomena and understanding it as not separate. Having enlightened experience from the witness perspective (the last duality?) IS a common weigh station on the journey, but can also dissolve. This is the deeper understanding amongst these other possible explanations in my experience. 

 

You can play comparative religion here, there is only one way to understand this quandary and that is having the complete understanding. 

 

[Mark Foote]

4 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

 

I think as we look closely (as in prolonged meditation), the appearance of agency, control, or choice begins to vanish. 

 

 

In my experience, it's a sudden thing, as far as the cessation of (volition in) action of the body.

[stirling]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

The Atman (breath, self) ... spirit? is all.  Let's start there.  the Atman could be described as an infinite continuum of consciousness, because being conscious arises because of consciousness, the Atman has no parts it is continuous and unbroken (no gaps) and there is nothing other than it (infinite).  The Atman as 'self' is the ultimate subject.  There is no other subject, it is as it is of itself independent of any causes or conditions.  The predicate is everything that can be said about the Atman, which ultimately, because it is infinite is every possible name/form which exists, has existed, or has the potential to exist.  An infinite dictionary of terms.

 

I would say "awareness" instead of consciousness, but have zero issues with your explanation. It's beautiful, frankly.

 

...but...

 

 

Quote

So imagine the infinite continuum of consciousness in which there are an infinity of points of reference.  Each acts as an observing self.  Each self looks out at the infinity of the Atman and sees an infinite display of energy and forms.  Then forgetting its own nature falls into seeing these forms as 'other than Atman' and 'other than self'.  So the sky becomes mere sky, earth mere earth, rock just a rock and a tree simply a tree.  Then recalling its source says I must return to the Atman, which is not the things I see but something else, something transcendent and beyond them.  And looking back to the Atman I shall let these appearances dissolve in my quest for the root of my nature which will wake me up from forgetting.

 

I don't really think I have a problem with this either as long as the infinite reference points are understood to be ultimately illusory.

[silent thunder]

4 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

Agency I think is apparent but illusory. We don't construct our thoughts, feelings, impulses. We don't individually construct our desires and impulses from a set of desires and impulses, they just arise. The decision making process is not apparent--- why we appear to choose one set of impulses over another is a mystery.  We didn't choose whether to be born in a time and place where balls arise, nor to be interested in them. That we even have a body capable of throwing a ball depends on the right set of circumstances. 

 

I think as we look closely (as in prolonged meditation), the appearance of agency, control, or choice begins to vanish.

Much resonance here, with this response, and the bolded in particular.

Thanks for sharing.

[Mark Foote]

4 hours ago, steve said:

 

Two monks were watching a flag flapping in the wind.
One said to the other, “The flag is moving.”
The other replied, “The wind is moving.”
Overhearing this exchange, Hui-neng said, “Neither flag nor wind is moving; mind is moving.”
(Case 29, The Gateless Gate)

 

Hui-neng is wrong here.

 

Sometimes when you think that you are doing zazen with an imperturbable mind, you ignore the body, but it is also necessary to have the opposite understanding at the same time. Your body is practicing zazen in imperturbability while your mind is moving. 

(“Whole-Body Zazen”, lecture by Shunryu Suzuki at Tassajara, June 28, 1970 (edited by Bill Redican, http://www.cuke.com/Cucumber Project/lectures/wholebodyzazen.html)

 

Who ya gonna believe!

Hui-neng supposedly was enlightened in a market place, when he heard an itinerant preacher read from the Diamond Sutra:
 

Let the mind be present without an abode.

 

(tr. Venerable Master Hsing Yun, “The Rabbit’s Horn: A Commentary on the Platform Sutra”, Buddha’s Light Publishing p 60)

 

Here's koun Franz, explaining two versions of "place the mind here":

 

Okay… So, have your hands in the cosmic mudra, palms up, thumbs touching, and there’s this common instruction: place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It’s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you’re not looking out here and out here and out here. It’s the positive version, perhaps, of “navel gazing”.

 

The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are–to relocate mind (let’s not say your mind) to your center of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.

 

(No Struggle (Zazen Yojinki, Part 6), by koun Franz, from koun’s “Nyoho Zen” site)

[dwai]

This happened when I was actively practicing self-inquiry (who am I?) a few years back. 
 

As I lay in bed with the inquiry, the mind-stream started collapsing back into the heart, until all was left was empty awareness. It was a movement, like everything was swirling and spiraling into the heart, like water in a bathtub. 

 

When I then slept, this clear awareness continued to be present in dreams, and in deep sleep (which is hard to describe), but if I were to attempt a description, it was like a light shining in a completely empty space. Nothing to illuminate, so “darkness”.  This continued for months subsequently. All happenings were being witnessed, but there could not be any “agency” ascribed. Only happenings. Even the activity of the mind and its process of appropriating identity/ownership was being witnessed. 

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

The Atman (breath, self) ... spirit? is all.  Let's start there.  the Atman could be described as an infinite continuum of consciousness, because being conscious arises because of consciousness, the Atman has no parts it is continuous and unbroken (no gaps) and there is nothing other than it (infinite). 

 

I know you just set it up to knock it down, in that post.  Nevertheless, a caution with regard to the consideration of the infinite as complete, from the field of mathematics:

 

Infinity has ruffled feathers in mathematics almost since the field’s beginning. The controversy arises not from the notion of potential infinity–the number line’s promise of continuing forever–but from the concept of infinity as an actual, complete, manipulable object.

 

Assuming actual infinity leads to unsettling consequences. Cantor proved, for instance, that the infinite set of even numbers {2,4,6,…} could be put in a “one-to-one correspondence” with all counting numbers {1,2,3,…}, indicating that there are just as many evens as there are odds-and-evens.

 

(Natalie Wolchover, Quanta Magazine December 3, 2013, reprint https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/infinity-logic-law/)

 

The mathematician Poincare sums it up nicely for me (from Wikipedia, actual infinity):

 

There is no actual infinity, that the Cantorians have forgotten and have been trapped by contradictions.

 

(H. Poincare [Les mathematiques et la logique III, Rev. metaphys. morale (1906) p. 316])

 

 

To my mind, that is why Gautama spoke in terms of what is not the self--it avoids treating infinity as a completed thing (although he didn't always avoid completed infinities).

[old3bob]

so after we get everything figured out conceptually the mind arrives here:  (put on a shelf for later use)

 

"The Middle Way (Madhyamaka) philosophy pioneered by the Indian Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna (2nd–3rd century CE) uses reason to negate our mistaken concepts about reality. Take a pair of opposites, such as real and unreal. Madhyamaka logic looks at four possibilities—that things are either real, unreal, both, or neither—and refutes them in turn. So in this case, the four negations are:

1. 1. Not real.
2. 2. Not unreal.
3. 3. Not both real and unreal.
4. 4. Not neither real nor unreal.

Another way we can look at reality is as one (or “oneness” in spiritual terms), as many separate things, or as any combination thereof. So the four negations are:

1. 1. Not one.
2. 2. Not many.
3. 3. Not both one and many.
4. 4. Not neither one nor many.

You can practice Madhyamaka by studying its logical arguments why any assertions about the nature of reality are self-defeating. You can also use it as a kind of koan practice. Accept, for the sake of argument, that things are not real, unreal, both, or neither. Contemplate where that leaves you. In either case, the Middle Way philosophy cuts through conceptualization and points you directly to the true nature of reality."    share on Facebook (Opens in new window)o share on Twitter (Opens in new window)ick to share on Pinterest (Opens

 

[Apech]

1 hour ago, stirling said:

 

I would say "awareness" instead of consciousness, but have zero issues with your explanation. It's beautiful, frankly.

 

...but...

 

 

 

I don't really think I have a problem with this either as long as the infinite reference points are understood to be ultimately illusory.

 

What does illusory mean?

[stirling]

31 minutes ago, Apech said:

What does illusory mean?

 

In this case what I mean is that the reference points are like the grid of a map. Latitude and longitude don't ultimately represent any real place or thing, they are conceptual constructs without any reality of their own beyond what we ascribe to them. 

 

 

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, old3bob said:

Madhyamaka logic looks at four possibilities—that things are either real, unreal, both, or neither—and refutes them in turn. So in this case, the four negations are:

1. 1. Not real.
2. 2. Not unreal.
3. 3. Not both real and unreal.
4. 4. Not neither real nor unreal.

Another way we can look at reality is as one (or “oneness” in spiritual terms), as many separate things, or as any combination thereof. So the four negations are:

1. 1. Not one.
2. 2. Not many.
3. 3. Not both one and many.
4. 4. Not neither one nor many.re on Facebook (Opens in new window)o share on Twitter (Opens in new window)ick to share on Pinterest (Opens

The study of the foundations of modern mathematics has resulted in two schools of thought, one of which accepts the notion of a completed infinity (an "actual" infinity) and the other of which does not (the intuitionists).  Wikipedia says this about the law of the excluded middle (the "law" or rule of logic that says something must be one way or the other, it cannot simultaneously be neither):

 

In general, intuitionists allow the use of the law of excluded middle when it is confined to discourse over finite collections (sets), but not when it is used in discourse over infinite sets (e.g. the natural numbers). Thus intuitionists absolutely disallow the blanket assertion: "For all propositions P concerning infinite sets D: P or ~P" (Kleene 1952:48).

 

Putative counterexamples to the law of excluded middle include the liar paradox or Quine's paradox.

 

(Wikipedia "Law of excluded middle")

 

The intuitionists disallow the law of the excluded middle on completed infinities because such use gives rise to contradictions.  

Gautama also used the logic that included the law of the excluded middle in his reasoning, as was common at the time.  Nevertheless, I think he was aware of the paradoxes that discussing the self as an extant thing would open up--my opinion--and he avoided the conversation.  In one case, he shut down the discussion by responding that what was being asserted in a question went beyond what he taught.  That says that he viewed what he taught as a limited set of statements about the common reality.  That I think is quite in keeping with Godel's demonstration that it's impossible to establish a set of axioms that can provide a basis for everything that is known in mathematics without contradictions from those axioms, and conversely, if your axioms generate no contradictions then you cannot prove everything that is known to be true in mathematics from them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by Mark Foote

[stirling]

While aspects of quantum physics sure hint at the underlying non-dual nature of reality (and why WOULDN'T they) boilerplate science and math aren't as applicable in my opinion.

 

Science depends on the creation of "models" that necessarily use a limited set of variables to make predictions about what might happen in various experiments. Using science as a tool to attempt to dismantle or understand a non-dual universe is problematic because it doesn't HAVE any variables. It's like trying to measure water in a bowl with a ruler. 

 

Similarly math assumes a universe divisible into specific numbers of items, or hard and fast rules about the interactions of discreet objects. Non-dual reality is the understanding that there AREN'T any truly existing separate items to be counted, divided, or even interact. 

 

What we could really use is a non-dual science, but without subject/object language I'm not sure how that would exist. 

 

This reminds me of a podcast I heard once where the guest was imminently popular scientist Mr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. The topic was: "Ghosts - Do They Exist". Mr. DeGrasse Tyson's answer was definitively no, since they had never been able to measure one with any of the available blinking science boxes in his lab, despite peoples claims of having witnessed such things. The problem is, of course, that the boxes are just abstractions. They are one removed from actual experiencing and can't really tell us ANYTHING about reality unless we are absolutely convinced that our external world is absolutely 100% real as we believe it- which even quantum physics tells us it is not. 

 

Full disclosure: Science was my religion for many many years until.... it wasn't. B. Allan Wallace cast enough shade on the idea that my beliefs were critically injured:

 

https://www.abebooks.com/Choosing-Reality-Contemplative-View-Physics-Mind/30899233140/bd?cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Trade0to10-_-product_id=COM9780877734697USED-_-keyword=&gclid=CjwKCAjw9-KTBhBcEiwAr19ig2ndLS8tjSsH_1DTlyh4BnmdZ3t2AtO9ixyXGHzhv6nRmX-DOuJ41RoCrzkQAvD_BwE

 

...then insight decimated beliefs in general. 

Edited May 9, 2022 by stirling

[Mark Foote]

At the risk of embarassing myself (again):

Think about it now
Think; think about it now.
 
Was there something left unread
Something simple, left unsaid?
 
Think.
 
Say, how things are
just say, how things are;
say, how things really are
just say, how things are
 
Think.
 
Was there someone left outside
Someone waiting for a ride?
 
Think.