|
Post by enigma on Dec 24, 2010 11:20:37 GMT -5
Gotta get up pretty early in the morning to fool the Zen master. Hehe.
|
|
|
Post by mamza on Dec 24, 2010 17:46:02 GMT -5
I have a question in regard to what I'm about to say. What I'm wondering is if this is on the right sort of 'path' or not. It seems like I've gone completely backwards with this, so I was wondering if you guys could share your opinions about it. Anyway, here it is:
If the mind/body were to stop thinking, would the illusory I disappear?
That's not possible because there is no I TO disappear. There never was. Either there's a thought about I existing, or there isn't. When there is, it is not reality. When there isn't, there is only reality. It feels like I'm going in endless circles here... Like I'm looking at myself, looking at myself, looking at myself--it just goes on forever, there is no self to see.
What there is is the awareness of these fake selves looking for the true self. How could something that's fake find something that's real? It can't. There is only what is real realizing that what it thinks is real is in fact fake.
So then what is real? Reality is all that is. Basically everything that exists forms reality, but I doesn't exist (I is not a thought, there is only a thought about I). Everything is real but me.
If I don't exist, who cares what I am? I feel like I took a crap on my brain.
Am I just thinking I see it again?
I wanted to PM this to someone in case it is right and I ruin it for someone else, but then I realized that it couldn't be right because the only reason I feel it is right is because I'm assuming there's someone to believe it is right. I feel so backwards...
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Dec 24, 2010 19:20:13 GMT -5
I'd be inclined to try to simplify that equation a bit, starting with the ideas of reality and existence. I don't find the term 'reality' to be very useful. Physicality is a temporary appearance in consciousness and in the largest context, doesn't qualify as real. The formless has no boundaries of any kind to establish it as 'real' or to distinguish it from something unreal. In the absence of boundaries, there's nothing to separate the formless from form, so it's hard to say the formless is real and form unreal. It's all the same, and all distinctions are mental bifurcations; ideas. Same is true of existence. Form is existence appearing as form. So maybe the terms are creating more confusion than clarity.
We can say there is no 'me', but when we begin drawing conclusions from that as though the idea is ultimately True, then confusion can come in. Mind will come up with stuff like there is no me to know that there is no me, or whatever. There is the appearance of individuations in consciousness. Maybe we could call them individualized perspectives with unique (not separate) thoughts and experiences. There's no need to deny this uniqueness. There is what we could call a larger intelligence beyond knowledge, which is not individual or separate. You are that intelligence which can step into it's own conceptualizing creation and form thoughts which may or may not be true in a given context, but which can never be ultimately True since you are the one forming thought and you stand prior to all thought.
As this intelligence, you can recognize the limited nature of thought, including the thoughts that you are bounded by the individualized perspective through which unique experience is happening. You can be clear about the illusions you form from within the individualized perspective you have created because you are not limited to that form. You are boundlessness that steps into a framework of boundaries and may form all sorts of limited ideas about what you have become, but you haven't become anything. You are still the unbounded that necessarily must imagine boundaries in order for experience to happen. It's just that you haven't become your own creation.
|
|
|
Post by mamza on Dec 24, 2010 20:07:20 GMT -5
I'm going to have to re-read this a lot.. thanks for posting it! Hopefully things will make a little more sense after I've digested it.
|
|
|
Post by therealfake on Dec 24, 2010 23:41:10 GMT -5
I have a question in regard to what I'm about to say. What I'm wondering is if this is on the right sort of 'path' or not. It seems like I've gone completely backwards with this, so I was wondering if you guys could share your opinions about it. Anyway, here it is: If the mind/body were to stop thinking, would the illusory I disappear? That's not possible because there is no I TO disappear. There never was. Either there's a thought about I existing, or there isn't. When there is, it is not reality. When there isn't, there is only reality. It feels like I'm going in endless circles here... Like I'm looking at myself, looking at myself, looking at myself--it just goes on forever, there is no self to see. What there is is the awareness of these fake selves looking for the true self. How could something that's fake find something that's real? It can't. There is only what is real realizing that what it thinks is real is in fact fake. So then what is real? Reality is all that is. Basically everything that exists forms reality, but I doesn't exist (I is not a thought, there is only a thought about I). Everything is real but me. If I don't exist, who cares what I am? I feel like I took a crap on my brain. Am I just thinking I see it again? I wanted to PM this to someone in case it is right and I ruin it for someone else, but then I realized that it couldn't be right because the only reason I feel it is right is because I'm assuming there's someone to believe it is right. I feel so backwards... Here's the skinny, You and God, the Source, the Eternal, Atman, etc, etc, are one in the same. There is only YOU and nothing outside of YOU, in the entire universe. Quantum mechanics, atoms, gravity, black holes, human beings, everything in the known universe are all waves, with their own laws and relative truths, layered upon the ocean of singularity or the source of everything, YOU. What are YOU going to do to YOU that could possibly be so bad? Don't listen to your mind so much, enjoy YOU, because that's all there is... TRF
|
|
|
Post by michaelsees on Dec 25, 2010 0:01:24 GMT -5
Here's the skinny, You and God, the Source, the Eternal, Atman, etc, etc, are one in the same. There is only YOU and nothing outside of YOU, in the entire universe. Quantum mechanics, atoms, gravity, black holes, human beings, everything in the known universe are all waves, with their own laws and relative truths, layered upon the ocean of singularity or the source of everything, YOU. What are YOU going to do to YOU that could possibly be so bad? Don't listen to your mind so much, enjoy YOU, because that's all there is... TRF Well said TRF. I go with the skinny any day! However a lot of folks want all the fat they can get. These folks are easy to spot. You see them at fast food places ordering super size. Need to go I heard a reindeer land on me roof! Michael
|
|
|
Post by zendancer on Dec 25, 2010 10:59:38 GMT -5
Mamza:
Why not slow down and investigate your questions one at a time. You asked, "If the mind/body were to stop thinking, would the illusory I disappear?" After asking this question, however, "your" mind didn't slow down for a second; it kept right on thinking and trying to understand. Why not stick with your first question and find out what would happen if the mind/body stopped thinking? Would the illusory I disappear? You can find out, but you will have to become exceedingly silent to do so. Also, don't expect an instant answer to these questions. It will take a fair amount of persistence to access what you want to know.
|
|
|
Post by mamza on Dec 25, 2010 14:19:12 GMT -5
Just today my step-dad got some tools for christmas, and he was hammering around the house. I remember getting really upset....I don't know what it is about hammer noises that get me so irritable but holy crap does it do that. Anyway, suddenly I realized that I was thinking I was mad and that really, there was no me to be mad.
If I look at everything passively, like I look at my keyboard, the I doesn't necessarily disappear. There is just the recognition that the I I'm thinking about isn't really me. But if that I isn't me, what is? I'm at a point where my mind feels like a cup being filled with the drink of thoughts, but just like a cup it's only the tool that holds those thoughts.
The realization that I'm thinking comes mindfully sometimes, and other times accidentally, and when that happens I realize that "I" is just a thought. It isn't me. So if my body isn't me, and my mind isn't me, and my thoughts aren't me, what is? Nothing. Nothing is me. But if nothing is me, then separation isn't me, and without separation nothing is everything. I am everything through nothing?
|
|
|
Post by zendancer on Dec 25, 2010 15:19:27 GMT -5
Too much thinking! LOL. Gotta put it all down and let the muddy water become clear. You already know what you want to know. Now become silent. The answer will emerge in its own good time. Not knowing is the way. Every time you reflect, you stir up the mud again.
|
|
|
Post by mamza on Dec 25, 2010 20:53:46 GMT -5
Roger Dodger, commence shutdown.
|
|