obviously there is no....

[old3bob]

52 minutes ago, steve said:

 

Sorry but I don't follow what you are saying here.

 

 

This is a nice, tidy, and convenient idiom but I don't think it means much really, at least not to me.

Similar phrases are tossed around in the Buddhist world but it is important to have a very clear understanding of what it means.

The Self doesn't need to show the Self or be shown the Self, it simply is as it is.

Saying it shows something to someone is an exercise in projection and anthropomorphism, IMO.

 

It is the human being, the practitioner, that is in the dark, does the work, has an enlightening experience, remembers that experience, names, describes, and discusses that experience. The human being continues to live in the context of that experience. 

Such an experience can be described as sacred, divine, and a blessing. 

We can even say the Self showed the Self to the practitioner, ... so what?

 

Even the purest and most perfect experience of the Self, or the nature of mind, arises for a human being, or in some other type of being that a human being creates in their mind. The practitioner must take care not to conflate themselves with the perfect and pure mind, with the Self; it happens and can be a serious obstacle and perhaps contribute to the genesis of an abusive and self-righteous "guru."

 

Yes, we as practitioners are a manifestation of the Self but always a manifestation, never the pure and perfect Self it-Self, at least not while in the form of a human being. Otherwise that is what we might call a Buddha, then we're back to the earlier question of how is that distinct fro Buddha-mind it-Self?

 

Some perhaps come quite close. My teacher's teacher recently died at the age of 100. He was the closest thing to a living Buddha I've encountered and yet he was just a person, albeit a marvelous and generous person, having devoted his entire life to his people and his religion. The last thing he said to my teacher was 'Don't worry about me, I am inseparable from rang jung yeshe (self-arising wisdom).' And yet he was human and died, never declared himself enlightened or a Buddha, and always cautioned against conflating oneself as a practitioner with the nature of mind. 

 

Not sure my diatribe is of much value to you but it helps me to try and verbalize my experience and understanding, such as it is. 

 

umm, I never said most of the things you are hitting on except for and in a manner of speaking about the Self showing the Self, and it sounds like you are trying to educate me about those?  I take such as well meaning and ok but don't assume everyone is in some kind of a Chinese finger trap.

 

 

[forestofclarity]

6 hours ago, steve said:

Not sure my diatribe is of much value to you but it helps me to try and verbalize my experience and understanding, such as it is.

 

It is helpful to others-- many of whom may be reading anonymously! 

 

[BigSkyDiamond]

18 minutes ago, forestofclarity said:

It is helpful to others

 

yes I agree.

regarding post from Steve, it is most definitely helpful.  to many.
Thank you for posting

 

Edited Monday at 01:19 AM by BigSkyDiamond

[Mark Foote]

On 8/2/2025 at 10:12 AM, steve said:

 

Anything we claim it to be, describe it as, refer to it as, or discuss is simply ideation, not it. 
 

 

 

… a good (person] reflects thus: “Lack of desire even for the attainment of the first meditation has been spoken of by [me]; for whatever (one) imagines it to be, it is otherwise” [Similarly for the second, third, and fourth initial meditative states, and for the attainments of the first four further meditative states]. 

 

(MN 113, tr. Pali Text Society vol III pp 92-94)

 

 

On 8/2/2025 at 10:12 AM, steve said:

 

 

That's one way to think about it but the Heart Sutra and related practices go further, again you are referring to conceptual thought (eg "properly understood"). The menu has no flavor, no nutrition, just ideas. You need to take a bite.

 

 

 

[Mark Foote]

On 8/2/2025 at 7:31 AM, steve said:

 

... The first time I experienced samadhi, it was preceded by a distinct sensation of something rupturing or popping in the center of my heart, followed by an instantaneous opening into unbounded awareness which was utterly stable and clear, though lasted only about an hour. I then chased that feeling and experience for months before being able to fully let it go. It was quite the obstacle to my practice!

 

 

 

Today I sat in the middle of the afternoon, just my usual sloppy half-lotus. My practice seems to have circled back around to something like:

 

There can… come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.

 

yet I am drawing on Gautama's description of mindfulness of the body:

 

… Setting mindfulness in front of (oneself), (one) breathes in mindfully and mindfully breathes out.

 

As (one) draws in a long breath (one) knows: A long breath I draw in. [As (one) breathes out a long breath (one) knows: I breathe out a long breath.] As (one) draws in a short breath (one) knows: A short breath I draw in. As (one) breathes out a short breath (one) knows: I breathe out a short breath.

 

Thus (one) makes up (one’s) mind:

 

I shall breathe in, feeling it go through the whole body. Feeling it go through the whole body I shall breath out.

 

Calming down the bodily aggregate I shall breathe in. Calming down the bodily aggregate I shall breathe out.

 

(SN 54.1, tr. Pali Text Society vol V pp 275-276; masculine pronouns replaced)

 

 

I do so in the context of what I consider to be the actionable elements in the sixteen elements of the mindfulness that made up his way of living:

 

1) Relax the activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation;

 

2) Find a feeling of ease and calm the senses connected with balance, in inhalation and exhalation;

 

3) Appreciate and detach from thought, in inhalation and exhalation;

 

4) Look to the free location of consciousness for the automatic activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation.

 

 

"Relax the activity of the body, in inhalation and exhalation" is my real-world application of "calming down the bodily aggregate I shall breathe in. Calming down the bodily aggregate I shall breathe out", "relax" instead of "calm" to differentiate the experience from "calming down the mental factors", which constitutes the eighth element of Gautama's way of living and really does involve calm.

 

The key to continued mindfulness is the last element.  The first three you could say are practices of "form is emptiness", and the last a practice of "emptiness is form".

Another way to describe that last element:

 

Translated into the language of the neurobiologists, concentration begins when consciousness is retained at the “specific position in space” of “embodied self-location”.

 

... There can come a moment when the experience of consciousness retained with “embodied self-location” becomes the experience of “embodied self-location” retained with consciousness.

 

("The Place Where You Stop and Rest")

 

 

Gautama's description of that last:

 

Again, a (person), putting away ease… enters and abides in the fourth musing; seated, (one) suffuses (one’s) body with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded with purity by the pureness of (one’s) mind. … just as a (person) might sit with (their) head swathed in a clean cloth; even so (one) sits suffusing (their) body with purity… 

 

(AN 5.28, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III pp 18-19)

 

My explanation:

 

The “purity” that suffuses the body is the pureness of the mind without any will or intention with regard to the body.

I believe that activity of the body solely by virtue of the location of consciousness is what Shunryu Suzuki referred to as “just sitting”. “Doing something” with regard to the body or the breath, whether “known and deliberate” or “concealed from the consciousness by habit”, has ceased.

 

("The Place Where You Stop and Rest")

 

"Unbounded awareness"--the first of the further concentrations is “the excellence of the heart’s release” through the extension of the mind of compassion through "the first quarter [of the world], likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; just so above, below, across; [one] dwells having suffused the whole world everywhere, in every way, with a mind of compassion that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence." That concentration Gautama said was "the infinity of ether".

 

 

 

 

[steve]

15 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

umm, I never said most of the things you are hitting on except for and in a manner of speaking about the Self showing the Self, and it sounds like you are trying to educate me about those? 

 

 

Nor do I mean to imply that you did.

As mentioned, I am expressing my ongoing process, for what it's worth.

Some may be stimulated by or related to things you've said, some not. 

 

15 hours ago, old3bob said:

I take such as well meaning and ok but don't assume everyone is in some kind of a Chinese finger trap.

 

 

 

I actually use those at work but not sure what it means in this context.

I think I can be somewhat concrete in how I interpret things, particularly though anonymous digital communication.

[old3bob]

 

thanks for the considerate  feedback ;-)