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Post by zendancer on Jan 31, 2024 10:27:45 GMT -5
Yes, and this is only true if there is a "me" behind the blame. When the illusion of "me" collapses, all that remains is THIS. In Zen-speak, from the standpoint of THIS in the form of a human, irritation is not-irritation, anger is not-anger, sadness is not-sadness, happiness is not-happiness, etc. It's the way Zen people use language to point to what lies beyond language or conception. G got attached to an idea promoted by E, and he can't let go of that idea long enough to see the underlying truth. In Zen-speak that's called "wandering around outside the temple." My life has been like a rollercoaster ride, with ups and downs. For many years, I didn’t realize this, but one day, I finally did. Since then, I’ve stopped chasing after a particular state and have learned to enjoy the ride. That's a significant realization! Only one more realization is necessary--that there's no separate "me" realizing anything, having experiences, and/or chasing or not chasing a particular state.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 31, 2024 10:18:06 GMT -5
Don't laugh too heavily! that's the truth. TMT
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Post by zendancer on Jan 31, 2024 10:17:34 GMT -5
Not the broader point here… but just curious… how often do you get angry at things? I’m guessing never to none. Almost never, but one should never say "never ever" because what may happen next is unknowable. I've gotten angry once or twice in the past at concrete truck drivers who nearly killed us in hot weather by pouring concrete too fast or too dry and didn't seem to appreciate how much they were making us workers struggle despite being told several times to "slow down" or "add some water." I understood that the drivers were either mentally detached from what they were doing, had no experience, or didn't care, but whether we want to call our attitude at that time "extreme irritation" or "anger" is anybody's call. Other than incidents with concrete truck drivers the only other thing that I can remember that generates extreme irritation is when someone pushes an idea or expectation that is clearly absurd or illogical. At a certain point one just doesn't want to listen to nonsense, and the usual response is to simply walk away. The main point is that when this happens without self-referential reflection, it isn't the same as when there is a sense of a "me" being offended by something. When there's no self-referential reflection, the response to any activity is empty.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 31, 2024 7:32:25 GMT -5
Irritation does not arise due to the blame upon others. But anger does. Irritation is just low volume blame. You are still irritated AT something. Yes, and this is only true if there is a "me" behind the blame. When the illusion of "me" collapses, all that remains is THIS. In Zen-speak, from the standpoint of THIS in the form of a human, irritation is not-irritation, anger is not-anger, sadness is not-sadness, happiness is not-happiness, etc. It's the way Zen people use language to point to what lies beyond language or conception. G got attached to an idea promoted by E, and he can't let go of that idea long enough to see the underlying truth. In Zen-speak that's called "wandering around outside the temple."
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Post by zendancer on Jan 31, 2024 7:19:53 GMT -5
I think ZD's right that whatever causes anger, also causes irritation. Irritation is just anger at a lower volume. Irritation does not arise due to the blame upon others. But anger does.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 31, 2024 7:18:52 GMT -5
Here's a way to see through this illusion. Irritation and anger are on a spectrum. If one searches for a boundary between mild irritation, strong irritation, extreme irritation, and anger, one will never find one because they're all imaginary. Another spectrum could be imagined as acceptable mild irritation, questionable strong irritation, highly questionable irritation, and unacceptable anger. Here, too, there are no boundaries because all of these states are imagined as well. Even the idea of a roller coaster is imagined. If one totally stops imagining, and then stops judging what is imagined, what then? The living truth is beyond imagining, but if one insists upon imagining, then one will never understand what's being pointed to. Experience, experience, experience, misidentification. Warm water is okay, hot water is okay, extremely hot water is okay, boiling hot water is not okay. The best advice is to look where the finger is pointing and leave imagination behind. When you focus touches thought/perception, you are in experience, as long as you are in experience, you can't avoid duality because that's the nature of experience. Find the real "you" and see if that "you" is in experience. Duality only exists in imagination. Leave imagination behind and find out what remains in that absence.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 29, 2024 22:32:28 GMT -5
The only thingless thing that ever asks a question or finds an answer to a question is THIS. It helps to distinguish between intellectual or conceptual knowing (episteme), which is relative, and direct or non-conceptual knowing (gnosis) which is not relative. ITSW, anyone who posts here is THIS interacting with the field of its own beingness because the poster and the reader of posts are both THIS.Right, because there is only one Aliveness (cosmically speaking) which temporarily imparts aliveness to every single thing. To use your analogy, the Aliveness seeing out my eyes is the same Aliveness seeing out yours, and on and on. Yes.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 29, 2024 18:46:47 GMT -5
Here's a way to see through this illusion. Irritation and anger are on a spectrum. If one searches for a boundary between mild irritation, strong irritation, extreme irritation, and anger, one will never find one because they're all imaginary. Another spectrum could be imagined as acceptable mild irritation, questionable strong irritation, highly questionable irritation, and unacceptable anger. Here, too, there are no boundaries because all of these states are imagined as well. Even the idea of a roller coaster is imagined. If one totally stops imagining, and then stops judging what is imagined, what then? The living truth is beyond imagining, but if one insists upon imagining, then one will never understand what's being pointed to. Experience, experience, experience, misidentification. Warm water is okay, hot water is okay, extremely hot water is okay, boiling hot water is not okay. The best advice is to look where the finger is pointing and leave imagination behind. The boundary is the difference between still having sensibility and losing the plot. Most adults don't realize this, but when all imaginary boundaries vanish, what we are is so intelligent that functionality either remains the same or improves. When the mind becomes totally silent, one does not lose the plot. In fact, there are some people who don't have an internal monologue at all, and they function quite efficiently in a state of silent awareness.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 29, 2024 15:43:27 GMT -5
It may depend upon what one considers "an answer." The answers to ALL of my existential questions got answered definitively, although the answers now seem humorous in retrospect. Here are some examples: 1. Why, as Americans at this retreat, are we chanting in Korean? Why hasn't the format changed in a way that acknowledges that most retreatants are lay people who speak English? This question arose spontaneously during my first Zen retreat. While chanting the Heart Sutra, the mind suddenly dropped away (hard to describe) and there was a huge insight. Afterwards, the answer to the question became obvious. The Zen Master who created the Zen school that sponsored the retreat was Korean, and he set up the program the way he wanted to. He spoke Korean and he inserted Korean chants into the format. This answer and accompanying understanding will seem trivial, but it was not trivial at the time. 2. My final existential question was, "How is it possible to stay in a unity-conscious state of mind permanently?" After the past sense of "me" vanished, and it was realized that THIS is the only doer, the answer to question then became obvious. Every human is ALWAYS in a unity-conscious state of mind whether they know it or not because there is only THIS doing whatever is done. The illusion was that "I" had oscillated between states of unity consciousness and ordinary consciousness, but that idea was false. There had never been a SVP oscillating between unity consciousness and ordinary consciousness. 3. One of my grandfather's favorite riddles: It was the bottom of the ninth inning. The score was tied, and the bases were loaded. The batter hit a home run, but not a man scored. Why? Because it was a game of baseball played by women. 4. A professor was greeted by a student one morning who said, "Good morning." The professor walked on thinking, "I wonder what he meant by that?" This is an old joke that illustrates that the professor was living in his head, but it can be asked as a koan. What did the student mean? The answer is that the student meant "Good morning!" haha I could list dozens of other koans (some shallow and some extremely deep), and they all have simple obvious answers once the illusion or paradox or double bind is penetrated. Some of them are answered by a physical action but a majority are answered with words. What do you know? Who thinks he knows things.. and who is he telling? Knowing is the devils lair of deception and arrogance.. The only thingless thing that ever asks a question or finds an answer to a question is THIS. It helps to distinguish between intellectual or conceptual knowing (episteme), which is relative, and direct or non-conceptual knowing (gnosis) which is not relative. ITSW, anyone who posts here is THIS interacting with the field of its own beingness because the poster and the reader of posts are both THIS.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 29, 2024 12:44:32 GMT -5
Thanks for the link, but... The end point is acquiring what Gurdjieff called Real I. That's having a body of a finer vibration, Gurdjieff called it a Soul body (in Beelzebub's Tales). The beginning process is using the physical body as a chemical laboratory to transform the energy of food, air and (sensory) impressions into a finer energy, not known in ordinary life. It's a tangible energy, meaning, you know when it is present (and when it isn't). Gurdjieff said a man or woman with Real I (Soul body) "is immortal within the limits of the solar system", meaning, nothing within the solar system could destroy the Soul body (and basically will last longer than the solar system lasts). In Search of the Miraculous pg 94. (Slightly combined with Beelzebub's Tales language). ... no, that's not the real I and not SR. SR is not about transformation but realization. Nothing has to change other than a shift of perspective from seeing the real as false and the false as real to seeing the real as real and the false as false. SDP and Gurdi are basically alchemists. It's just a higher level of SVP experience. SR is seeing thru the SVP, not transforming the SVP into a super SVP. And that's not immortality, that's just an extended life time. Immortality means never born and so never having to die. Hence his misconceived question to me about how I am planning to die. Precisely.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 29, 2024 12:42:22 GMT -5
I've never heard ZD say that. I've heard him say that he doesn't know what other people mean by (the term) soul. That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings, who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being -- I am that.
Amritbindu Upanishad
That way of defining "soul" is fine with me. Many people, however, refer to the word "soul" as if it is something distinctly separate that inhabits a body, and migrates, transmigrates, etc, and I've never heard an explanation of what, specifically, they think it is that does that.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 29, 2024 12:36:08 GMT -5
ZD has stated very clearly he doesn't know what a soul is. I've never heard ZD say that. I've heard him say that he doesn't know what other people mean by (the term) soul. Correct.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 29, 2024 12:35:00 GMT -5
like the way you expressed that. So you are asking if Gurdi's teaching offers the potential for this (end of torment and living freely instead)? Does it SDP? I think the things called ‘existential questions’ can never be satisfactorily answered and will simply regurgitate in your mind… until they don’t… But it’s not like the questions are answered, per se, it’s just that they stop arising… (which speaks more to the ‘quieting’ of a mind than just sweeping it under the rug for later retrieval) It may depend upon what one considers "an answer." The answers to ALL of my existential questions got answered definitively, although the answers now seem humorous in retrospect. Here are some examples: 1. Why, as Americans at this retreat, are we chanting in Korean? Why hasn't the format changed in a way that acknowledges that most retreatants are lay people who speak English? This question arose spontaneously during my first Zen retreat. While chanting the Heart Sutra, the mind suddenly dropped away (hard to describe) and there was a huge insight. Afterwards, the answer to the question became obvious. The Zen Master who created the Zen school that sponsored the retreat was Korean, and he set up the program the way he wanted to. He spoke Korean and he inserted Korean chants into the format. This answer and accompanying understanding will seem trivial, but it was not trivial at the time. 2. My final existential question was, "How is it possible to stay in a unity-conscious state of mind permanently?" After the past sense of "me" vanished, and it was realized that THIS is the only doer, the answer to question then became obvious. Every human is ALWAYS in a unity-conscious state of mind whether they know it or not because there is only THIS doing whatever is done. The illusion was that "I" had oscillated between states of unity consciousness and ordinary consciousness, but that idea was false. There had never been a SVP oscillating between unity consciousness and ordinary consciousness. 3. One of my grandfather's favorite riddles: It was the bottom of the ninth inning. The score was tied, and the bases were loaded. The batter hit a home run, but not a man scored. Why? Because it was a game of baseball played by women. 4. A professor was greeted by a student one morning who said, "Good morning." The professor walked on thinking, "I wonder what he meant by that?" This is an old joke that illustrates that the professor was living in his head, but it can be asked as a koan. What did the student mean? The answer is that the student meant "Good morning!" haha I could list dozens of other koans (some shallow and some extremely deep), and they all have simple obvious answers once the illusion or paradox or double bind is penetrated. Some of them are answered by a physical action but a majority are answered with words.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 29, 2024 7:25:55 GMT -5
It's odd that irritation isn't seen as an identical situation. Why irritation if one doesn't believe in a separate self? To see the obvious answer, logic must be left behind. Irritation or low side of the rollercoaster happens as a result of experience, no one can avoid it, but anger happens because of misidentification. Here's a way to see through this illusion. Irritation and anger are on a spectrum. If one searches for a boundary between mild irritation, strong irritation, extreme irritation, and anger, one will never find one because they're all imaginary. Another spectrum could be imagined as acceptable mild irritation, questionable strong irritation, highly questionable irritation, and unacceptable anger. Here, too, there are no boundaries because all of these states are imagined as well. Even the idea of a roller coaster is imagined. If one totally stops imagining, and then stops judging what is imagined, what then? The living truth is beyond imagining, but if one insists upon imagining, then one will never understand what's being pointed to. Experience, experience, experience, misidentification. Warm water is okay, hot water is okay, extremely hot water is okay, boiling hot water is not okay. The best advice is to look where the finger is pointing and leave imagination behind.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 28, 2024 22:22:54 GMT -5
It seems personal as long as the illusion of a "me" remains intact. Such a decision is not necessary if you don't believe in person. We are always back to angry argument, anger is not possible if you don't believe that person is not doing anything. It's odd that irritation isn't seen as an identical situation. Why irritation if one doesn't believe in a separate self? To see the obvious answer, logic must be left behind.
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