Differences between dualism and non-dualism

[steve]

2 hours ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

just to clarify.

 

Do you mean the word emptiness as you use it is meant to describe that state were the daily self is folded up real small?

 

Yes, precisely. The feeling of me is diminished or at least not overly engaged in the experience. Thoughts still happen, emotions happen and they come and go more freely when awareness does not identify with them as forcefully and automatically. Your experience was a good example as was Bindi’s. Similarly the full blown nondual experience is another example as is the experience of the Clear Light practitioners sometimes have during deep sleep when practicing sleep yoga. Dwai described this earlier in the thread.

[steve]

3 minutes ago, ralis said:

 

I didn't state I believed language was absolute, but there are many that do. Arguing with myself? That is a really low accusation!

No worse than calling someone a pointer!

😘

[ralis]

2 minutes ago, steve said:

No worse than calling someone a pointer!

😘

 

Pointing out is different than a pointer. 

[Apech]

[old3bob]

if it wasn't for silence could music take place?  Or something like that since Om is in all the gigantic cascading waterfall like sounds of the universe yet there is also the silence of Om... so I'd say it's true that words can or do echo "true nature" although such an echo is a dualistic derivative.  (that could be followed back to non-duality) 

Edited May 16, 2022 by old3bob

[steve]

In case anyone misunderstands my intention, I do not mean to give the impression that anything I say is authoritative or absolute… just the half-baked notions of an American pointer!

 

 

 

[old3bob]

another form of pointing:

[old3bob]

and one of a Buddha pointing:  (no offense meant but somewhere in Buddhist teachings the question arises about whether or not dogs have Buddha nature?)  (and lets not leave out cats)

 

[Mark Foote]

On 5/15/2022 at 9:07 PM, ralis said:

 

Self doesn't interfere in experience? 

 

Self doesn't act.  The agency associated with self, action based on the exercise of will, ceases:

 

…I say that determinate thought is action. When one determines, one acts by deed, word, or thought.

 

(AN III 415, Pali Text Society Vol III pg 294)

 

And what… is the ceasing of action? That ceasing of action by body, speech, and mind, by which one contacts freedom,–that is called ‘the ceasing of action’.

 

(SN IV 145, Pali Text Society IV pg 85)

 

 There's a particular experience connected with the breath and a freedom of self-awareness to move:
  

You must strive with all your might to bite through here and cut off conditioned habits of mind. Be like a person who has died the great death: after your breath is cut off, then you come back to life. Only then do you realize that it is as open as empty space. Only then do you reach the point where your feet are walking on the ground of reality.

 

(Yuanwu, "Zen Letters", translated by Cleary & Cleary, pg 84)

 

My take:
 

Yuanwu made a connection between “biting through here” and the ability to “cut off conditioned habits of mind”, where to “cut off conditioned habits of mind” meant to cease any voluntary activity of thought or direction of the body, just as though one were letting go of life itself. Yuanwu stated that as a matter of course, such a cessation of habitual activity results in a feeling that the activity of breath in the body has been cut off, and causes a person to come to their senses as though returned to life from the dead. Returned to one’s senses, the location of awareness shifts in three-dimensional space without restriction, as in empty space; activity in the body is engendered by virtue of the location of awareness and the nerve impulses generated by ligaments and fascia as they stretch in response to the relaxed necessity of breath, without volition.

(Letting Go in Action: the Practice of Zazen)

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Mark Foote

[ralis]

1 hour ago, steve said:

In case anyone misunderstands my intention, I do not mean to give the impression that anything I say is authoritative or absolute… just the half-baked notions of an American pointer!

 

 

 

 

 

There are other forms of pointing, but will not be depicted here. 

[stirling]

On 5/15/2022 at 4:03 AM, schroedingerscat said:

Maybe it might be also be interesting to look at the 'effects' of (non-dual) gnosis in the pragmatical matter of fact aspect of life, not only the effects and phenomenons in meditation (like lights, colours and so on). 

 

I'd be interested, if there could be found some commonalities of those who entered (non-dual) gnosis. (Day by day seemingly nothing changes, but if you look back, everything is different? Or rather sudden changes or else...)

Did your body change, did you become averse to some, attracted to others? More sensitive, more balanced or the contrary? 

Did you perceive 'energetics' differently than before? Times of many synchronicities and phases where there were none?

 

Actually the experience is that things are changing moment to moment. The past (even only moments previous) and future are understood to only be thoughts occurring in awareness now. Moment to moment bardo shifts are visible. Walking through a door into another room can feel like a different day, or world. When concentration is applied reality can be seen to be pixelated - boiling and shifting in constant change, BUT there is a "stillness" to it, for lack of a better word that is part of its emptiness. Underneath the millisecond to millisecond change is a continuity and quietness that is always present and unchanging. This is how "dependent origination" is a relative teaching, and how even the teachings of the Buddha are nonsense. The body is the same, though some senses become sharper without the continuous mental dialogue creating noise between pure experiencing. Loosely held ideals and hobbies, or activities that really only ameliorated the illusory "self" become uninteresting and are dropped. Energetics are seen to be like any other phenomena, IMHO, not necessarily important in the scheme of things, or having any real insight attached to them. Synchronicities, especially ones that seem to make things easier happen often.

 

Quote

What patterns are at work there?

 

What sort of patterns do you mean?

[stirling]

On 5/15/2022 at 9:40 AM, ralis said:

Realizing non-dual is not the end, but the beginning. 

 

Complete realization is the end of thinking you are in charge, the end of questions, the end of karma, but the beginning of a continual deepening of just what reality is. 

[old3bob]

found some Buddhist/Chinese commentary/history:

Griffith Foulk SuMMER 1999 

 

"When a scholar of Zen Buddhism has a dog called Mu, as I do, people think they know why. But things are not always what they seem, and my black lab’s name does not come from the famous koan “Mu.” It derives, rather, from Mustafa—the name given him at the humane society when he was picked up as a stray puppy. Mustafa soon became Musty and then just Mu. . . his Buddha-nature was never in question.

•  

The koan “Mu,” a.k.a. “Chao-chou’s Dog,” also has a pedigree that is rather different from what one might imagine. Today this koan is regarded as an ideal device for cutting off discursive, conceptual thought and for leading Zen trainees to an initial experience of enlightenment; yet it actually derived from a highly intellectual, scholastic debate over the presence of Buddha-nature in sentient and insentient beings that continued for centuries during medieval Chinese Buddhism. Readers who want a taste of the arcane details of that debate, and a lucid interpretation of the koan in its original philosophical context, are advised to check out an article by Robert Sharf entitled “On the Buddha-nature of Insentient Things.”

As Sharf points out (the following translations are all his), the discourse records of the Ch’an master Chao-chou Ts’ung-shen (778-897) contain three dialogues in which the master responds to questions about Buddha-nature. The first such exchange reads as follows:

[A student] asked: “Does a dog also have buddha-nature or not?” The master said: “It does not” [in Chinese, “wu”; pronounced “mu” in Japanese]. [The student] said: “Everything has buddha-nature, from the buddhas above to the ants below. Why does a dog not have it?” The master said: “Because it has the nature of karmically conditioned consciousness.”

Here the student expressed what all Chinese Buddhists from about the seventh century on took for granted: that all sentient beings are innately possessed of Buddha-nature (or Buddha-mind). Chao-chou’s “wu” was thus unexpected and perhaps intended to shock, but it was not necessarily enigmatic. He may simply have wished to stress the point that although living beings have Buddha-nature, unless they realize that fact by “seeing the nature” they remain caught up in delusion and continue to suffer in the karmically conditioned round of rebirth.

The second relevant exchange in Chao-chou’s record reads:

[A student] asked: “Does an oak tree also have buddha-nature or not?” The master said: “It has.” [The student] said: “Then when will it become a buddha?” The master said: “When the sky falls to the earth.” [The student] said: “When will the sky fall to the earth?” The master said: “When the oak tree becomes a buddha.”

Here the question concerns the presence of Buddha-nature in an insentient thing, a tree. Chao-chou is willing to concede that, in a certain sense, all of existence is coextensive with Buddha-nature or Buddha-mind (for nothing could exist “outside” of it). He wants to argue, however, that only sentient beings can “become” buddhas by waking up to or seeing the Buddha-nature within them; such an epistemological transformation is impossible for insentient beings, at least until the end of the world.

The third exchange reads:

[A student] asked: “Does a dog also have buddha-nature or not?” The master said: “The [road] in front of every house leads to Ch’ang-an [the capital].”

Here Chao-chou affirms that all sentient beings do in fact have Buddha-nature, dogs included, but again he implies that they need to wake up to that fact if it is to do them any good. The “road that leads to Ch’ang-an” may run in front of every house, but unless one actually travels it, the sights and smells of the capital can only be imagined.

Some of the dog lovers who have contributed to this issue suggest that their own pooches have not only gone for walks around their neighborhood streets, but actually have made the trip to Ch’ang-an. It is unlikely, however, that Chao-chou had such a fond view of the species: Dogs in medieval China were more likely viewed as filthy curs, or as sources of protein, than as “man’s best friend.” They were, on occasion, identified in Buddhist morality tales as bodhisattvas in disguise, as were beggars and pregnant women, but such stories gained their edifying force precisely from the ordinarily low, polluted state of the beings in question.

My Mu is a beloved pet, but he surely has not glimpsed his own Buddha-nature. Nor does he recognize that of squirrels: The mere sight of one, and all of his bad karma, born of beginningless greed, hatred, and delusion, comes rushing out in an eye-popping, hackle-raising snarl. And when it comes to oak trees, lamp posts, and other insentient things, not even their Buddha-nature can save them from the indignity of being his territorial markers.

Chao-chou’s dog eventually strayed from the master’s discourse record and was adopted by Wu-men Hui-k’ai (1183-1260) as the first case of his koan collection entitled Gateless Barrier (Wu-men-kuan). According to that text:

A monk asked master Chao-chou: “Does a dog also have buddha-nature or not?” The master said: “It does not.”

The exchange was shortened in this context, eliminating the follow-up question about buddhas and ants, and Wu-men added a comment that instructs us not to think about the meaning of Chao-chou’s “wu,” but simply to break the bonds of intellect and directly penetrate its deep meaning. The way of philosophy being thus cut off, people ever since have been without a clue as to what the master meant. I, for one, can do little more than leave my mark on the oak tree and hope that some of you may sniff it out." 

[stirling]

16 hours ago, ralis said:

Space is not empty. I wish that Buddhists or whomever came up with that term would stop using that it. Emptiness is not in my experience whatsoever. 

 

Well... it IS empty, but what is it empty OF is the real question. A Madhymaka Buddhist would tell you that it is empty of things that have an intrinsic nature, or an existence of their own as separate from other things. I think that this is a really nice way of understanding it:

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/the-fullness-of-emptiness/

[old3bob]

Warning graphic images: One should be flexible for Hatha Yoga but not give into the temptation of chewing their toenails:

[Mark Foote]

2 hours ago, stirling said:

 

Well... it IS empty, but what is it empty OF is the real question. A Madhymaka Buddhist would tell you that it is empty of things that have an intrinsic nature, or an existence of their own as separate from other things. I think that this is a really nice way of understanding it:

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/the-fullness-of-emptiness/
 

Thay is commenting about the lack of separate existence of the skandhas based on his translation of the Heart Sutra.

 

Here's an interesting comment, down below the translation:

 

Thay’s only regret is that the patriarch who recorded the Heart Sutra did not add the four words ‘no being, no non-being’ immediately after the four words ‘no birth, no death,’ because these four words would help us transcend the notion of being and non-being, and we would no longer get caught in such ideas as ‘no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue…’

(New Heart Sutra translation by Thich Nhat Hanh)

 

Thay has added those words, in his own translation:

 

“Listen Sariputra, all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness; their true nature is the nature of no Birth no Death, no Being no Non-being, no Defilement no Purity, no Increasing no Decreasing."

 

(Ibid)

 

Just for reference, the Jikoji Zen Center version of the Heart Sutra is here.

 

Wikipedia says this about the "Heart Sutra":

 

The Heart Sūtra (Sanskrit: प्रज्ञापारमिताहृदय Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya or Chinese: 心經 Xīnjīng, Tibetan: བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ) is a popular sutra in Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the title Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya translates as "The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom".

 

"The perfection of wisdom"--"perfect wisdom", as here:

 

Whatever… is material shape, past, future or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, mean or excellent, or whatever is far or near, (a person), thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling… perception… the habitual tendencies… whatever is consciousness, past, future, or present (that person), thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. (For one) knowing thus, seeing thus, there are no latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body.”

 

(MN III 18-19, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg 68)

 

The five skandhas are empty of any abiding self, and the evidence of that is the action that takes place when "determinate thought" in action has ceased, and the cessation of "latent conceits".  

The folks commenting on Thay's translation think the sixth patriarch of Ch'an in China got it wrong, in the poem he wrote for the fifth patriarch (that resulted in the robe and bowl being passed on to the sixth patriarch).  They translate that poem this way:

Originally, there is no Bodhi tree

The bright mirror does not exist either

From the non-beginning of time nothing has ever existed

So where can the dust settle?

 

Here's another translation, very different in the third line:
 

Bodhi originally has no tree,

The mirror(-like mind) has no stand.

Buddha-nature (emptiness/oneness) is always clean and pure;

Where is there room for dust (to alight)?

 

(Yampolsky 132)

 

All that's necessary in the second poem is that the mind be present without abode, and that happens constantly without particular effort.  Assume agency, put the mirror on a stand--a persistance of consciousness, a stationing of consciousness, identification of self in the five skandhas (suffering). 

I wonder why Thay's followers don't attribute the interpretations they are making to Thay himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

1 minute ago, Mark Foote said:

 

shoop shoop shoop shoop a doop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Mark Foote

[Apech]

Most people on here have talked in terms of the non-duality of subject and object - which is of course important.  But in Mahamudra they talk about the non-duality of samsara and nirvana.  You can posit an end of suffering or a yogic union with the primordial mind within the standard definitions of Buddhadharma or Yoga.  But almost inevitably this induces a way of thinking of escape or return or rejection of the everyday reality.  Everything dissolves away and so on.  Birth and death only arise from ignorance or identification and so on.  Which begs the question - what do we do with this life?  What do we do with the tasks presented to us, with our thoughts and emotions, with our relationships to others?  'It's just illusion, man' - is that really the answer?

 

 

[old3bob]

as the saying goes ...."chop wood and carry water"

[Apech]

Just now, old3bob said:

as the saying goes ...."chop wood and carry water"

you know what - I spent the last four years chopping water and carrying wood - and all I got was an Olympic rowing gold medal.

[ralis]

43 minutes ago, Apech said:

Most people on here have talked in terms of the non-duality of subject and object - which is of course important.  But in Mahamudra they talk about the non-duality of samsara and nirvana.  You can posit an end of suffering or a yogic union with the primordial mind within the standard definitions of Buddhadharma or Yoga.  But almost inevitably this induces a way of thinking of escape or return or rejection of the everyday reality.  Everything dissolves away and so on.  Birth and death only arise from ignorance or identification and so on.  Which begs the question - what do we do with this life?  What do we do with the tasks presented to us, with our thoughts and emotions, with our relationships to others?  'It's just illusion, man' - is that really the answer?

 

 

 

Norbu stated, there is no difference between samsara and nirvana. I still have the tape in my partner's art studio.

 

What we do we do ? Discuss it here! 

[stirling]

55 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

Thay is commenting about the lack of separate existence of the skandhas based on his translation of the Heart Sutra.

 

Here's an interesting comment, down below the translation:

 

Thay’s only regret is that the patriarch who recorded the Heart Sutra did not add the four words ‘no being, no non-being’ immediately after the four words ‘no birth, no death,’ because these four words would help us transcend the notion of being and non-being, and we would no longer get caught in such ideas as ‘no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue…’

(New Heart Sutra translation by Thich Nhat Hanh)

 

Thay has added those words, in his own translation:

 

“Listen Sariputra, all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness; their true nature is the nature of no Birth no Death, no Being no Non-being, no Defilement no Purity, no Increasing no Decreasing."

 

(Ibid)

 

Just for reference, the Jikoji Zen Center version of the Heart Sutra is here.

 

Wikipedia says this about the "Heart Sutra":

 

The Heart Sūtra (Sanskrit: प्रज्ञापारमिताहृदय Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya or Chinese: 心經 Xīnjīng, Tibetan: བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ) is a popular sutra in Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the title Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya translates as "The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom".

 

"The perfection of wisdom"--"perfect wisdom", as here:

 

Whatever… is material shape, past, future or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, mean or excellent, or whatever is far or near, (a person), thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling… perception… the habitual tendencies… whatever is consciousness, past, future, or present (that person), thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. (For one) knowing thus, seeing thus, there are no latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body.”

 

(MN III 18-19, Pali Text Society Vol. III pg 68)

 

The five skandhas are empty of any abiding self, and the evidence of that is the action that takes place when "determinate thought" in action has ceased, and the cessation of "latent conceits".  

The folks commenting on Thay's translation think the sixth patriarch of Ch'an in China got it wrong, in the poem he wrote for the fifth patriarch (that resulted in the robe and bowl being passed on to the sixth patriarch).  They translate that poem this way:

Originally, there is no Bodhi tree

The bright mirror does not exist either

From the non-beginning of time nothing has ever existed

So where can the dust settle?

 

Here's another translation, very different in the third line:
 

Bodhi originally has no tree,

The mirror(-like mind) has no stand.

Buddha-nature (emptiness/oneness) is always clean and pure;

Where is there room for dust (to alight)?

 

(Yampolsky 132)

 

All that's necessary in the second poem is that the mind be present without abode, and that happens constantly without particular effort.  Assume agency, put the mirror on a stand--a persistance of consciousness, a stationing of consciousness, identification of self in the five skandhas (suffering). 

I wonder why Thay's followers don't attribute the interpretations they are making to Thay himself.

 

All of that is worthy of examination, but I don't think it impacts Hahn's beautiful essay on the relative truth of emptiness. Besides, can't we consider that he might even be right? I am not taking a position, merely considering that it is worth examining such things and holding such things lightly.

 

For what it is worth, I have chanted the Jikoji version of the Heart Sutra a gajillion times and enjoy its subtleties, but they don't bother me either. You might have read his talks on the Heart Sutra too. 

 

Kobun Book on the Heart Sutra

 

In his examination he says:

 

Quote

“. . . all dharmas do not appear nor disappear.” The English translation is a little softer than the original: In Sanskrit, Nutpanna means “arising” or “being born” so anutpanna is “not-appearing” or “not-being-born.” Niruddha means “disappear.” When smoke develops in the air and disappears from your sight, that state is called niruddha, scattering away, or penetrating away, like incense penetrates into the air, and disappears. When we are existences, like particles of smoke or incense, we cannot believe that we appear and disappear, but we feel that since we appeared, we will also go away, so there is a limitation. And in between this appearing and disappearing is a big occasion. We are filled by stuff which is the contents of all existence. It goes on until we get tired and disappear. So when we say, “. . .dharma doesn’t appear, doesn’t disappear,” it sounds like, “No man is to be born, and he never dies.” - "Kobun's Talks on the Heart Sutra", Kobun Chino Roshi

 

I believe Kobun implies something similar here, of course without re-writing the Heart Sutra itself... but based on the stories I have heard, it wouldn't be entirely out of character for him to do so!

 

IMHO the truly important aspect of the Heart Sutra is that Prajnaparamita is the perspective by which we should appreciate reality. Resting in Zazen (open awareness) IS actualizing enlightenment. 

 

Quote

There is the singlefold prajna: unsurpassable, complete enlightenment, actualized at this very moment. -  Dogen

 

The words of the Buddha are amazing and important, as are the words of Thich Nhat Hahn, or Dogen, but embodied buddhas in this very moment exist, speaking from Prajnaparamita and opening the dharma gates for countless beings. Thanks for playing your part. 

 

BODHI SVAHA! 

[stirling]

52 minutes ago, Apech said:

Most people on here have talked in terms of the non-duality of subject and object - which is of course important.  But in Mahamudra they talk about the non-duality of samsara and nirvana.  You can posit an end of suffering or a yogic union with the primordial mind within the standard definitions of Buddhadharma or Yoga.  But almost inevitably this induces a way of thinking of escape or return or rejection of the everyday reality.  Everything dissolves away and so on.  Birth and death only arise from ignorance or identification and so on.  Which begs the question - what do we do with this life?  What do we do with the tasks presented to us, with our thoughts and emotions, with our relationships to others?  'It's just illusion, man' - is that really the answer?

There is no duality of samsara and nirvana because neither has ever existed. Samsara is the creation of the "self" and the thinking mind. There has always just been reality as it is, and reality is without a "self" and without the suffering of a "self". Obscuration hides this simple understanding.

 

Quote

Then the venerable Sariputra said to the Brahma Sikhin, "As for me, O Brahma, I see this great earth, with its highs and lows, its thorns, its precipices, its peaks, and its abysses, as if it were entirely filled with ordure."

 

Brahma Sikhin replied, "The fact that you see such a buddha-field as this as if it were so impure, reverend Sariputra, is a sure sign that there are highs and lows in your mind and that your positive thought in regard to the buddha-gnosis is not pure either. Reverend Sariputra, those whose minds are impartial toward all living beings and whose positive thoughts toward the buddha-gnosis are pure see this buddha-field as perfectly pure."

 

Thereupon the Lord touched the ground of this billion-world-galactic universe with his big toe, and suddenly it was transformed into a huge mass of precious jewels, a magnificent array of many hundreds of thousands of clusters of precious gems, until it resembled the universe of the Tathagata Ratnavyuha, called Anantagunaratnavyuha. 

 

Everyone in the entire assembly was filled with wonder, each perceiving himself seated on a throne of jeweled lotuses.

Then, the Buddha said to the venerable Sariputra, "Sariputra, do you see this splendor of the virtues of the buddha-field?"

Sariputra replied, "I see it, Lord! Here before me is a display of splendor such as I never before heard of or beheld!"

 

The Buddha said, "Sariputra, this buddha-field is always thus pure, but the Tathagata makes it appear to be spoiled by many faults, in order to bring about the maturity of the inferior living beings. For example, Sariputra, the gods of the Trayastrimsa heaven all take their food from a single precious vessel, yet the nectar which nourishes each one differs according to the differences of the merits each has accumulated. Just so, Sariputra, living beings born in the same buddha-field see the splendor of the virtues of the buddha-fields of the Buddhas according to their own degrees of purity." - Buddha, Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra

 

Awakening is seeing this, and eventually realizing that the daily phenomenal world isn't GOING anywhere. What shifts is how reality is seen. After insight there is everyday life, just not as you previously knew it. 

 

After the Ecstasy, the Laundry - Jack Kornfield, Book Title

 

Quote

“Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water.” - Zen Proverb

 

[ralis]

Hmmmm! 22 pages and no answer yet. 

[Apech]

2 minutes ago, ralis said:

Hmmmm! 22 pages and no answer yet. 

the meaning of the journey is not the destination