Annette Nibley

[Deleted]

Jul 14, 2014 15:10:03 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Jul 14, 2014 14:37:26 GMT -5 @djembebum said:

who is the cigarette man?

ZD ST classic

A guy walks into a Buddhist temple smoking a cigarette. He has had a big enlightenment experience and he has realized that all is One. In this Oneness there is no holy or unholy; evenything is the same. He therefore flicks cigarette ashes on the statue of the Buddha because the Buddha is no different than the ground outside the temple. This man has understood One, but he hasn't yet understood what lies beyond One. You are a Zen student and your job is to teach people. How can you teach the cigarette man that one more step is necessary--that holy is holy and unholy is unholy? This man is at 180 degrees on the Zen circle; how do you show him where 360 degrees lies? If you open your mouth to say anything to him, he will hit you. He is very strong--much stronger than you are. How can you teach the cigarette man?

ok thanks. Being a fool myself, I have no instructions for cigarette man.

[Deleted]

Jul 14, 2014 15:43:22 GMT -5 @djembebum said:

Jul 14, 2014 15:10:03 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

ZD ST classic

ok thanks. Being a fool myself, I have no instructions for cigarette man.

I reckon the Fool is the best equipped of all teachers..


kathryn.mnsi.net/major/major.html#0_The_Fool

[Deleted]

Jul 14, 2014 15:10:03 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Jul 14, 2014 14:37:26 GMT -5 @djembebum said:

who is the cigarette man?

ZD ST classic

A guy walks into a Buddhist temple smoking a cigarette. He has had a big enlightenment experience and he has realized that all is One. In this Oneness there is no holy or unholy; everything is the same. He therefore flicks cigarette ashes on the statue of the Buddha because the Buddha is no different than the ground outside the temple. This man has understood One, but he hasn't yet understood what lies beyond One. You are a Zen student and your job is to teach people. How can you teach the cigarette man that one more step is necessary--that holy is holy and unholy is unholy? This man is at 180 degrees on the Zen circle; how do you show him where 360 degrees lies? If you open your mouth to say anything to him, he will hit you. He is very strong--much stronger than you are. How can you teach the cigarette man?

I disagree. The job of a Zen student is to be a student of Beauty, not to teach people.

[laughter]

Jul 14, 2014 15:10:03 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Jul 14, 2014 14:37:26 GMT -5 @djembebum said:

who is the cigarette man?

ZD ST classic

A guy walks into a Buddhist temple smoking a cigarette. He has had a big enlightenment experience and he has realized that all is One. In this Oneness there is no holy or unholy; evenything is the same. He therefore flicks cigarette ashes on the statue of the Buddha because the Buddha is no different than the ground outside the temple. This man has understood One, but he hasn't yet understood what lies beyond One. You are a Zen student and your job is to teach people. How can you teach the cigarette man that one more step is necessary--that holy is holy and unholy is unholy? This man is at 180 degrees on the Zen circle; how do you show him where 360 degrees lies? If you open your mouth to say anything to him, he will hit you. He is very strong--much stronger than you are. How can you teach the cigarette man?

Thanks maxy ... sorry 'bum I'd actually meant to post that to max!

[runstill]

Jul 10, 2014 10:06:29 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Jul 10, 2014 9:29:59 GMT -5 runstill said:

Overall I like the analogy there might be a question or two , could you post a little more of her stuff.

You mean you don't mind the logic?

This is what shows up on the main page of her website when you go there:

“What Never Changes,” first launched in 2006, has always been a non-duality website, but has recently come to focus on traditional Vedanta. The shift of emphasis to Vedanta calls for a little bit of explanation.

I first stumbled upon non-duality in 2005, and it was a watershed event in my seeking life. I’ll never forget the first moment I realized there was something here I had never noticed, that there was this witnessing consciousness which had always been here, was always at total peace, hadn’t changed since I was a little kid, and had never been affected in any way by the experiences of my life.

This recognition naturally led me to want to know more — what is this witness? It’s always peaceful, and it’s always here — I can see this so clearly. But I’m not peaceful! That’s not my experience! So what’s going on? And there arose a strong desire to get to the bottom of it, to partake of that peace and make it my own experience.

Along the way, I was helped by many wonderful non-dual teachers, and I owe them all a huge debt of gratitude, particularly John Wheeler. I was an enthusiastic non-dualist, to say the least, and for several years I posted many non-dual essays and dialogues on this website. Some even said that I expressed the non-dual ideas eloquently. I was feeling pretty good about it all.

But at some point, I knew there was something wrong. Although I had gone as far as anyone could go with “popular” non-duality — and most of the time I was extremely peaceful — when suffering did arise, I still identified myself as the sufferer. In non-duality, it is this identification with the bound, limited, suffering person that is eradicated completely — or so they say. It hadn’t happened for me. Here I was advising people about non-duality, supposedly having it all figured out, and yet I was still suffering!

What wasn’t complete yet in my knowledge? I knew this much, that there are two parts to discovering one’s true nature: Finding out what you are not, and finding out what you are. I knew what I was not, but the second part was still evading my grasp. The Self had not yet been revealed. So I kept looking.

The non-dual marketplace seemed to have nothing more to offer me, no more tricks up its sleeve to move me off this spot. In fact, everyone I knew was in the same spot, even some who were publishing non-dual websites and books as supposed experts. This seemed to be a place many people could not get beyond, where doubts remained, final questions were not answered, all the pieces of the puzzle were not fully and finally in place. And worst of all, virtually all the non-dual advice I could find was extremely unhelpful, such as, “There is no one to realize the Self. You are already the Self you seek. The ‘you’ who is suffering does not exist. There is no such thing as suffering.” No such thing? Then how can it be so painful? This was the epitome of frustration and confusion. More on this in my first blog post.

Through grace, I was led to the website of James Swartz, who has been teaching traditional Vedanta for forty years, since his self-realization under the discipleship of Swami Chinmayananda in 1970. At the time I found James, I didn’t know there was such a thing as traditional Vedanta, which is a tried and true, systematic, methodical means to non-dual realization, thousands of years old, deriving from Vedic source texts, and given a reawakening by the great philosopher Adi Shankaracharya in the 8th century A.D. All this time, I thought non-duality was only communicated in Nisargadatta-style freeform satsangs, in dribs and drabs, and you just had to sort of hope that eventually it would soak in, if you kept “inquiring.” Not very scientific, but okay, if that’s all I had to work with.

Skeptical of the organized method at first (since all my indoctrination had been that non-duality was never meant to be taught in a structured way, and therefore any structured teaching was automatically invalidated!), I just began to listen, and luckily, I stuck with it. I listened to James’ intelligent, illuminating commentary on the source texts of non-duality, in an organized and logical fashion. I couldn’t believe that my long-standing questions were being addressed and answered.

Most importantly, the “person” I experienced myself to be was not being denied (as in the popular buzz phrase, “There is no person”), but instead she was given tools and a road map for finding her way out of bondage. The failure of my previous education was clear: Popular non-duality was negating the person too soon! Before she herself discovered her true nature as the One Self. The person needs time, tools, a means to dismantle its false self-image and discover its own being as the Self. After all, it is the imagined person who needs liberating, not the Self. The Self is already free — we all know that. The one experiencing herself as a person is the one who is liberated through understanding all of this. Then the person goes, the teaching goes, it all goes. But not before the person’s ignorance is addressed. This is what traditional Vedanta does, it addresses the ignorance and uproots it, piece by piece, methodically, logically, cleverly.

It wasn’t too long before I realized what I was writing online was a bunch of crap. The crap was mixed in with the good, but that made it even worse, in a way. It was extremely confusing to people trying to sort all this out. So I stopped writing, and I swore never to write again until I knew for sure that I wasn’t misleading anyone. So this is why I took the website down in 2010.

For the next two years, I did nothing but listen to Vedanta. I listened in the way James recommends. He says, Don’t analyze this teaching in the light of your existing belief system, do it the other way around: Analyze your existing belief system in the light of this teaching! After all, your belief system is all that’s keeping you bound. Sure, I tried picking it apart at first, trying to make my beliefs be the arbiter, but I found that my logic did not stand up to the logic of Vedanta. So I just let it take over, basically. It was like getting a new operating system.

And that’s the end of the story. I know I am the Self, and I can say that with rock-solid confidence and know what it means. And, I can still speak from the standpoint of the person, and there is no problem with that. From the standpoint of the Self, there was no liberation, there was no process, and there is no person who was liberated. But that’s not what’s being discussed here. What I’m talking about exists and operates on the relative plane, and affects relative beings. Until you are completely confident that you are not a relative being, and that you are the Self, this talk can be useful to you.

So I wanted to put the website back up, mostly to direct you to the traditional Vedanta teaching, and mainly to the awesome audios and videos that are available on James Swartz’s website. There are hundreds of hours of teaching available, and it was truly these recordings that, over time, little by little, revealed my own being as the Self. James has spent forty years in service of this teaching, for the liberation of people like you, and these recordings are an invaluable resource. He does a fabulous job of this. I can’t speak highly enough of James.

But it’s not all about James Swartz. I also write about Vedanta myself. I don’t purport to be a Vedanta teacher, but I do have comments, inspiration, and points of comparison between my “old” way of thinking and Vedanta that could be helpful in clearing certain things up. In studying Vedanta, I was constantly reminded of the shortcomings of the non-dual teachings I was exposed to previously. I’d like to share those observations with you.

Annette Nibley
June 2013

Thanks , her approach is logical and relentless. Relentlessness seems to come with the territory especially for you.

[Deleted]

Well thanks that is very generous. One theme from the teachers I've picked up is that it's best to just do whatever you're doing at 100%. Doesn't matter what it is, just go for it. Lock into something and just full out blitz. Adyashanti: "dance your dance." James Swartz: "If you're going to live the middle class cliche do it 100%" ZD: "do whatever you do 100%" Always easier said than done. One of my things is doubt. Methinks doubt is one of the things that shaves off the percentage when committing to something else. But if you doubt 100%, now that gets vaporous real quick.

[silence]

Jul 17, 2014 13:50:52 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Well thanks that is very generous. One theme from the teachers I've picked up is that it's best to just do whatever you're doing at 100%. Doesn't matter what it is, just go for it. Lock into something and just full out blitz. Adyashanti: "dance your dance." James Swartz: "If you're going to live the middle class cliche do it 100%" ZD: "do whatever you do 100%" Always easier said than done. One of my things is doubt. Methinks doubt is one of the things that shaves off the percentage when committing to something else. But if you doubt 100%, now that gets vaporous real quick.

Something I asked another poster here is what they actually wish to be taught. It's a serious question that can really help to clarify what you're doing and what your true motivations are. In regards to doubt, it's important to note that the type of certainty or conviction often discussed isn't in place of doubt. In other words, while mind may come to rest, if that same certainty is translated into thinking, laid out into into a logical format, mind can always find a way to doubt. Although I can't remember the precise wording, the Niz quote about the nature of mind being restless is a good one. Thought is essentially an interface between you and things you don't yet understand. The useful aspect of it anyway. What many people following teachers are trying to understand doesn't need any interface. It's almost irrelevant what you're doing or what you're thinking about.

[stardustpilgrim]

Jul 10, 2014 10:06:29 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Jul 10, 2014 9:29:59 GMT -5 runstill said:

Overall I like the analogy there might be a question or two , could you post a little more of her stuff.

You mean you don't mind the logic?

This is what shows up on the main page of her website when you go there:

“What Never Changes,” first launched in 2006, has always been a non-duality website, but has recently come to focus on traditional Vedanta. The shift of emphasis to Vedanta calls for a little bit of explanation.

I first stumbled upon non-duality in 2005, and it was a watershed event in my seeking life. I’ll never forget the first moment I realized there was something here I had never noticed, that there was this witnessing consciousness which had always been here, was always at total peace, hadn’t changed since I was a little kid, and had never been affected in any way by the experiences of my life.

This recognition naturally led me to want to know more — what is this witness? It’s always peaceful, and it’s always here — I can see this so clearly. But I’m not peaceful! That’s not my experience! So what’s going on? And there arose a strong desire to get to the bottom of it, to partake of that peace and make it my own experience.

Along the way, I was helped by many wonderful non-dual teachers, and I owe them all a huge debt of gratitude, particularly John Wheeler. I was an enthusiastic non-dualist, to say the least, and for several years I posted many non-dual essays and dialogues on this website. Some even said that I expressed the non-dual ideas eloquently. I was feeling pretty good about it all.

But at some point, I knew there was something wrong. Although I had gone as far as anyone could go with “popular” non-duality — and most of the time I was extremely peaceful — when suffering did arise, I still identified myself as the sufferer. In non-duality, it is this identification with the bound, limited, suffering person that is eradicated completely — or so they say. It hadn’t happened for me. Here I was advising people about non-duality, supposedly having it all figured out, and yet I was still suffering!

What wasn’t complete yet in my knowledge? I knew this much, that there are two parts to discovering one’s true nature: Finding out what you are not, and finding out what you are. I knew what I was not, but the second part was still evading my grasp. The Self had not yet been revealed. So I kept looking.

The non-dual marketplace seemed to have nothing more to offer me, no more tricks up its sleeve to move me off this spot. In fact, everyone I knew was in the same spot, even some who were publishing non-dual websites and books as supposed experts. This seemed to be a place many people could not get beyond, where doubts remained, final questions were not answered, all the pieces of the puzzle were not fully and finally in place. And worst of all, virtually all the non-dual advice I could find was extremely unhelpful, such as, “There is no one to realize the Self. You are already the Self you seek. The ‘you’ who is suffering does not exist. There is no such thing as suffering.” No such thing? Then how can it be so painful? This was the epitome of frustration and confusion. More on this in my first blog post.

Through grace, I was led to the website of James Swartz, who has been teaching traditional Vedanta for forty years, since his self-realization under the discipleship of Swami Chinmayananda in 1970. At the time I found James, I didn’t know there was such a thing as traditional Vedanta, which is a tried and true, systematic, methodical means to non-dual realization, thousands of years old, deriving from Vedic source texts, and given a reawakening by the great philosopher Adi Shankaracharya in the 8th century A.D. All this time, I thought non-duality was only communicated in Nisargadatta-style freeform satsangs, in dribs and drabs, and you just had to sort of hope that eventually it would soak in, if you kept “inquiring.” Not very scientific, but okay, if that’s all I had to work with.

Skeptical of the organized method at first (since all my indoctrination had been that non-duality was never meant to be taught in a structured way, and therefore any structured teaching was automatically invalidated!), I just began to listen, and luckily, I stuck with it. I listened to James’ intelligent, illuminating commentary on the source texts of non-duality, in an organized and logical fashion. I couldn’t believe that my long-standing questions were being addressed and answered.

Most importantly, the “person” I experienced myself to be was not being denied (as in the popular buzz phrase, “There is no person”), but instead she was given tools and a road map for finding her way out of bondage. The failure of my previous education was clear: Popular non-duality was negating the person too soon! Before she herself discovered her true nature as the One Self. The person needs time, tools, a means to dismantle its false self-image and discover its own being as the Self. After all, it is the imagined person who needs liberating, not the Self. The Self is already free — we all know that. The one experiencing herself as a person is the one who is liberated through understanding all of this. Then the person goes, the teaching goes, it all goes. But not before the person’s ignorance is addressed. This is what traditional Vedanta does, it addresses the ignorance and uproots it, piece by piece, methodically, logically, cleverly.

It wasn’t too long before I realized what I was writing online was a bunch of crap. The crap was mixed in with the good, but that made it even worse, in a way. It was extremely confusing to people trying to sort all this out. So I stopped writing, and I swore never to write again until I knew for sure that I wasn’t misleading anyone. So this is why I took the website down in 2010.

For the next two years, I did nothing but listen to Vedanta. I listened in the way James recommends. He says, Don’t analyze this teaching in the light of your existing belief system, do it the other way around: Analyze your existing belief system in the light of this teaching! After all, your belief system is all that’s keeping you bound. Sure, I tried picking it apart at first, trying to make my beliefs be the arbiter, but I found that my logic did not stand up to the logic of Vedanta. So I just let it take over, basically. It was like getting a new operating system.

And that’s the end of the story. I know I am the Self, and I can say that with rock-solid confidence and know what it means. And, I can still speak from the standpoint of the person, and there is no problem with that. From the standpoint of the Self, there was no liberation, there was no process, and there is no person who was liberated. But that’s not what’s being discussed here. What I’m talking about exists and operates on the relative plane, and affects relative beings. Until you are completely confident that you are not a relative being, and that you are the Self, this talk can be useful to you.

So I wanted to put the website back up, mostly to direct you to the traditional Vedanta teaching, and mainly to the awesome audios and videos that are available on James Swartz’s website. There are hundreds of hours of teaching available, and it was truly these recordings that, over time, little by little, revealed my own being as the Self. James has spent forty years in service of this teaching, for the liberation of people like you, and these recordings are an invaluable resource. He does a fabulous job of this. I can’t speak highly enough of James.

But it’s not all about James Swartz. I also write about Vedanta myself. I don’t purport to be a Vedanta teacher, but I do have comments, inspiration, and points of comparison between my “old” way of thinking and Vedanta that could be helpful in clearing certain things up. In studying Vedanta, I was constantly reminded of the shortcomings of the non-dual teachings I was exposed to previously. I’d like to share those observations with you.

Annette Nibley
June 2013

That's very cool........

sdp

[stardustpilgrim]

After reading the OP this morning I thought, I know that name, James Swartz, looked it up and knew yes, I have his book, How To Attain Enlightenment, The Vision of Nonduality. It took me a while to find it, my book mark was at page 32, I had a few passages marked (the date of publication is 2009. It's quite possible I've had it since then, but at least for a few years). I started again at the beginning, have now finished 95 pages. I would say the guy knows his stuff. He's one of the few Western non-duality teachers I can read without puking, I will finish the book, shortly.

Coming back just now I looked for a James Swartz thread, there is one below and I also read the thread referenced there. When time permits I will post on the James Swartz thread. For now I can recommend his book to anyone. (And btw, found out he has a new book coming out....I think in September).

[Deleted]

Jul 17, 2014 16:56:37 GMT -5 silence said:

Jul 17, 2014 13:50:52 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Well thanks that is very generous. One theme from the teachers I've picked up is that it's best to just do whatever you're doing at 100%. Doesn't matter what it is, just go for it. Lock into something and just full out blitz. Adyashanti: "dance your dance." James Swartz: "If you're going to live the middle class cliche do it 100%" ZD: "do whatever you do 100%" Always easier said than done. One of my things is doubt. Methinks doubt is one of the things that shaves off the percentage when committing to something else. But if you doubt 100%, now that gets vaporous real quick.

Something I asked another poster here is what they actually wish to be taught. It's a serious question that can really help to clarify what you're doing and what your true motivations are.

Yes you're good at keeping those types of useful questions on the table. Also, 'what do you want?'

I heard a James Swartz interview where he basically said that one of the main functions of the teacher is to give confidence. It's just like: yeah that's right. And that's one of those things that maybe is best conveyed face-to-face, though I'm sure mileage may vary. He's also very much in the camp of what is being shot for is an 'understanding.' So that's something that could be confirmed.

Jul 17, 2014 16:56:37 GMT -5 silence said:

In regards to doubt, it's important to note that the type of certainty or conviction often discussed isn't in place of doubt. In other words, while mind may come to rest, if that same certainty is translated into thinking, laid out into into a logical format, mind can always find a way to doubt. Although I can't remember the precise wording, the Niz quote about the nature of mind being restless is a good one. Thought is essentially an interface between you and things you don't yet understand. The useful aspect of it anyway. What many people following teachers are trying to understand doesn't need any interface. It's almost irrelevant what you're doing or what you're thinking about.

One thing that I've learned here at ST is that while anything can be doubted, in some cases doubting is just evidence of restless mind. It's a good lesson, kind of a no-brainer actually, but nonethless something some of us need to bathe our brains in for a long time in order to get.

At this point I think I'm leaning more towards building up faith, as much as that makes a part of me cringe. Faith that just giving over whatever to stillness or silence is enough and the wisest road.

[laughter]

Jul 20, 2014 20:32:44 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

After reading the OP this morning I thought, I know that name, James Swartz, looked it up and knew yes, I have his book, How To Attain Enlightenment, The Vision of Nonduality. It took me a while to find it, my book mark was at page 32, I had a few passages marked (the date of publication is 2009. It's quite possible I've had it since then, but at least for a few years). I started again at the beginning, have now finished 95 pages. I would say the guy knows his stuff. He's one of the few Western non-duality teachers I can read without puking, I will finish the book, shortly.

Coming back just now I looked for a James Swartz thread, there is one below and I also read the thread referenced there. When time permits I will post on the James Swartz thread. For now I can recommend his book to anyone. (And btw, found out he has a new book coming out....I think in September).

I'm pretty sure that nowhereman pulled up stakes to travel out to where JS is and take up the role of student. It would be interesting to hear from him again if he ever comes back around.

[silence]

Jul 21, 2014 11:42:07 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Jul 17, 2014 16:56:37 GMT -5 silence said:

Something I asked another poster here is what they actually wish to be taught. It's a serious question that can really help to clarify what you're doing and what your true motivations are.

Yes you're good at keeping those types of useful questions on the table. Also, 'what do you want?'

I heard a James Swartz interview where he basically said that one of the main functions of the teacher is to give confidence. It's just like: yeah that's right. And that's one of those things that maybe is best conveyed face-to-face, though I'm sure mileage may vary. He's also very much in the camp of what is being shot for is an 'understanding.' So that's something that could be confirmed.

How does James explain giving people confidence?

[Deleted]

Jul 21, 2014 23:55:00 GMT -5 silence said:

Jul 21, 2014 11:42:07 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Yes you're good at keeping those types of useful questions on the table. Also, 'what do you want?'

I heard a James Swartz interview where he basically said that one of the main functions of the teacher is to give confidence. It's just like: yeah that's right. And that's one of those things that maybe is best conveyed face-to-face, though I'm sure mileage may vary. He's also very much in the camp of what is being shot for is an 'understanding.' So that's something that could be confirmed.

How does James explain giving people confidence?

great pic...silence,
staggering

[Deleted]

TEACHER is to remove obstacles....
thus the student
staggers NOT.

[Deleted]

Jul 21, 2014 23:55:00 GMT -5 silence said:

Jul 21, 2014 11:42:07 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Yes you're good at keeping those types of useful questions on the table. Also, 'what do you want?'

I heard a James Swartz interview where he basically said that one of the main functions of the teacher is to give confidence. It's just like: yeah that's right. And that's one of those things that maybe is best conveyed face-to-face, though I'm sure mileage may vary. He's also very much in the camp of what is being shot for is an 'understanding.' So that's something that could be confirmed.

How does James explain giving people confidence?

See this.