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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 14:05:04 GMT -5
That differential correlates to the two seemingly contradicting ways that Niz used the term, and the answer to Maxy's question depends on what the one experiencing the sense of being takes the I-thought to refer to. I was looking at that crazy diagram of self knowledge this morning (sorry can't find a link) and it shows 'I AM' as being the border between 'The Great Illusion' and 'The Natural State.' So it is the foundation of all illusion (personal self) and also the point at which form meets formlessness. I like to think of this by the metaphor of Alice and the looking glass. In one direction, looking from the "I AM" outward, to where attachments are put on it ("I am a man, I am a father, I am a salaried employee" ...) it's what he's referred to as "the core delusion", but looking back toward the mirror from out in the delusion, it's the polishing cloth that one uses to discover the only certainty. When he starts talking in terms that are indeterminate is when he's referring to the other side of the looking glass. Trying to follow any of that with logic or to use any of those statements as the basis for coming to conclusions about what happens outside of Wonderland just leads to confusion at the very least, and often, strife. |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 14:15:03 GMT -5
I was looking at that crazy diagram of self knowledge this morning (sorry can't find a link) and it shows 'I AM' as being the border between 'The Great Illusion' and 'The Natural State.' So it is the foundation of all illusion (personal self) and also the point at which form meets formlessness. Bingo. Niz calls it the door. Niz: "Tirelessly I draw your attention to the one incontrovertible factor – that of being. Being needs no proofs – it proves itself. If only you go deep into the fact of being and discover the vastness and the glory, to which the ‘I am’ is the door, and cross the door and go beyond, your life will be full of happiness and light. Believe me; the effort needed is as nothing when compared with the discoveries arrived at." Oh boy, he used the "e" word there too  If you want to know what Niz thought of effort, download the searchable PDF of "I AM THAT" and look for the word. He told people who obviously took themselves to be their body and their mind that the only effort required was to attend their sense of being while if he was asked about or otherwise described what he referred to as his "natural state" he was quite clear that no effort could reach it. We could recite quotes to each other about this like a couple of irate bible thumpers, but do you know how ridiculous that would be? |
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Post by enigma on Aug 14, 2014 14:16:38 GMT -5
It IS actually seen, but the wording is a nightmare. Most teachers talk about Being and Beingness as transcendent. Many here have talked about it that way. Niz seems to split the two, making one form and the other formless. The thing is that without a chronological identification of these terms it can't be known when he modified his own language. As you have changed and adapted your own language over the last ten years. Niz would also have been doing that throughout the life of his recorded words.. Since he didn't speak English at all, I'm suspicious of the translations. |
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Post by justlikeyou on Aug 14, 2014 14:21:22 GMT -5
Bingo. Niz calls it the door. Niz: "Tirelessly I draw your attention to the one incontrovertible factor – that of being. Being needs no proofs – it proves itself. If only you go deep into the fact of being and discover the vastness and the glory, to which the ‘I am’ is the door, and cross the door and go beyond, your life will be full of happiness and light. Believe me; the effort needed is as nothing when compared with the discoveries arrived at." Oh boy, he used the "e" word there too If you want to know what Niz thought of effort, download the searchable PDF of "I AM THAT" and look for the word. He told people who obviously took themselves to be their body and their mind that the only effort required was to attend their sense of being while if he was asked about or otherwise described what he referred to as his "natural state" he was quite clear that no effort could reach it. We could recite quotes to each other about this like a couple of irate bible thumpers, but do you know how ridiculous that would be? No argument here. |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 14:30:36 GMT -5
It's clear that effort should never be directed toward the effortless, which is why the distinction is being made. IOW, a practice aimed at any sort of realization is problematic from the start. Practice is in the realm of mind, and so if there is a practice for understanding mind then I'd say this is useful. However, I'm not sure that there is. In the realm of mind, change comes about through understanding. To use Quinn's example, allowing feelings rather than trying to escape them is useful, but it's not really the result of practice but rather understanding how futile and self destructive suppressing emotions is. When mind sees that clearly, it simply doesn't try to escape them, which is not a reconditioning practice. The understanding is what alters the conditioning without any further effort involved. (We could say there is effort involved in understanding) One may gain awareness and understanding through a practice aimed at reconditioning the mind, but it's important to see that changing conditioning is a function of mental clarity and not mental retraining. Mind is functioning far better than ego imagines it does and is always a few steps ahead. It's ego that positions itself as retrainer of mind. Mind isn't being retrained. At best, it is being educated. It's good to take the appearance of effort out of such processes because mind uses the idea in the way you talked about it; as cause for more and more practice, which can become a stalling tactic very quickly. "Understanding" seems to have a bad rap. "So and so demonstrates a mere intellectual understanding yada yada." Somehow putting 'intellectual' in front of 'understanding' changes it from the real mccoy to a fake, a mimic. But as James Schwartz repeatedly emphasizes much of this whole biz is exactly about understanding. How that understanding comes about is not via rote memorization though, and it almost never is. Honestly, I don't find the concept of Oneness or the idea of no separation to be possible to be intellectually understood. The terms can be bandied about, repeated verbally in different contexts, but fundamentally they can only be grokked, or understood. There's plenty of intellectual reference points for "Oneness". The world is profoundly interconnected, and if you believe the astronomers, it all began at a single point as a single thing and no part of it can be destroyed, it can only change form. One can simply ask, "where do I end and the world begin?", and realize quite quickly that every boundary is ultimately arbitrary. Another one (of dozens) of lines of inquiry which all lead to the same conclusion is to recognize that no action ever really either arises or completes in isolation without both endless cause and effect. Where it gets tricky for the mind is the fact that this interconnected apparent whole is only a shadowy reflection of what nonduality points toward. Any "Whole" that we can conceive of is encapsulated by the conception and thereby necessarily involves at least two things. |
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Post by enigma on Aug 14, 2014 14:32:41 GMT -5
It IS actually seen, but the wording is a nightmare. Most teachers talk about Being and Beingness as transcendent. Many here have talked about it that way. Niz seems to split the two, making one form and the other formless. No, no split here. He is saying something else. Niz: "The primary ignorance is about our ‘I amness’; we have taken it as the Ultimate, which is ignorance. We presume that this consciousness (beingness, sense of beingness, I Am-ness, sentience, self evident aliveness) is the eternal, the Ultimate, which is the mistake. This ‘I am’ principle is there provided the waking state and deep sleep are there. I am not the waking state, I am not the deep sleep – therefore I, the Absolute, am not that ‘I am’. Niz: "My apparent dependence is on this consciousness which says ‘I am’. It is this sentience which enables me to perceive you. This concept I did not (originally) have but even then I existed. I was there before this consciousness appeared." When I search the quote, I don't find what you have written in brackets. You added that as your interpretation of what Niz means by I amness/consciousness. I understand the quote as it actually is, which still doesn't resolve the being/beingness issue: " The primary ignorance is about our ‘I amness’; we have taken it as the Ultimate, which is ignorance. We presume that this consciousness is the eternal, the Ultimate, which is the mistake. This ‘I am’ principle is there provided the waking state and deep sleep are there. I am not the waking state, I am not the deep sleep – therefore I, the Absolute, am not that ‘I am’. " |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 14:44:15 GMT -5
Bingo. Niz calls it the door. Niz: "Tirelessly I draw your attention to the one incontrovertible factor – that of being. Being needs no proofs – it proves itself. If only you go deep into the fact of being and discover the vastness and the glory, to which the ‘I am’ is the door, and cross the door and go beyond, your life will be full of happiness and light. Believe me; the effort needed is as nothing when compared with the discoveries arrived at." Oh boy, he used the "e" word there too Sounds like the gateless gate again. Seems imposing on approach but disappears immediately upon crossing the threshold. What's with the axe then? For peeps lingering at the threshold, clinging to the "I AM" for dear lifeless life.  Here's a hint: listen to what the material realists and commonsensicalists have to say.  |
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Post by justlikeyou on Aug 14, 2014 14:44:29 GMT -5
No, no split here. He is saying something else. Niz: "The primary ignorance is about our ‘I amness’; we have taken it as the Ultimate, which is ignorance. We presume that this consciousness (beingness, sense of beingness, I Am-ness, sentience, self evident aliveness) is the eternal, the Ultimate, which is the mistake. This ‘I am’ principle is there provided the waking state and deep sleep are there. I am not the waking state, I am not the deep sleep – therefore I, the Absolute, am not that ‘I am’. Niz: "My apparent dependence is on this consciousness which says ‘I am’. It is this sentience which enables me to perceive you. This concept I did not (originally) have but even then I existed. I was there before this consciousness appeared." When I search the quote, I don't find what you have written in brackets. You added that as your interpretation of what Niz means by I amness/consciousness. I understand the quote as it actually is, which still doesn't resolve the being/beingness issue: " The primary ignorance is about our ‘I amness’; we have taken it as the Ultimate, which is ignorance. We presume that this consciousness is the eternal, the Ultimate, which is the mistake. This ‘I am’ principle is there provided the waking state and deep sleep are there. I am not the waking state, I am not the deep sleep – therefore I, the Absolute, am not that ‘I am’. " Correct. But for the "self evident aliveness" everything else are terms he used in similar contexts. I wanted you to understand exactly what is being said. Of course, you will have to make up your own mind about it. But for illustration purposes here is another quote you can google. Niz: "We are dealing with the physical form, which is made up of, and fed by, the five elements. In that form are operating the life force (the vital breath) and this consciousness that is, the knowledge ‘I am’ or the sense of being, the sense of existence. The latter is the ‘sentience’, which is the gift of the consciousness.' |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 14:45:01 GMT -5
Indubitably. "If you want to become a philosopher, marry a contentious woman". Frankly, hooking up with someone who's bat-sh!t crazy is not my prescription for any ills or weaknesses, period.   very well said. |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 14:45:57 GMT -5
Frankly, hooking up with someone who's bat-sh!t crazy is not my prescription for any ills or weaknesses, period. Ah, but remember Silver, love is blind. It's only seen clearly for what it is the morning after the night before. But by then it may be too late. For this reason I strongly suggest long engagements without sex...perhaps 5 years or longer  A certain prescription for an uptick in the murder rate. |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 14:49:35 GMT -5
Bingo. Niz calls it the door. Niz: "Tirelessly I draw your attention to the one incontrovertible factor – that of being. Being needs no proofs – it proves itself. If only you go deep into the fact of being and discover the vastness and the glory, to which the ‘I am’ is the door, and cross the door and go beyond, your life will be full of happiness and light. Believe me; the effort needed is as nothing when compared with the discoveries arrived at." Oh boy, he used the "e" word there too So, to Niz, beingness is form but being is prior to form?  When he speaks of prior-to or beyond form he uses an expression that is indeterminate: not neither, not either, not both, but beyond both. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2014 14:49:47 GMT -5
The thing is that without a chronological identification of these terms it can't be known when he modified his own language. As you have changed and adapted your own language over the last ten years. Niz would also have been doing that throughout the life of his recorded words.. Since he didn't speak English at all, I'm suspicious of the translations. Consciousness and the Absolute.
Translation by Jean Dunn.
February 12, 1981
"Nothing in the world is of any use to me. That very identity with which you try to understand everything is unreal. Daily you have to convince yourself about yourself. You have to carry out your life, first of all assuring yourself that you are. Nothing has happened except the knowingness, only a pin-prick of knowingness against the background of your innate nature of no-knowingness, and this is of no help at all."
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That's succinct.
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Post by justlikeyou on Aug 14, 2014 14:50:13 GMT -5
Ah, but remember Silver, love is blind. It's only seen clearly for what it is the morning after the night before. But by then it may be too late. For this reason I strongly suggest long engagements without sex...perhaps 5 years or longer A certain prescription for an uptick in the murder rate. Dude, come on, there are other ways |
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Post by laughter on Aug 14, 2014 14:53:48 GMT -5
But that doesn't answer the question. This isn't necessarily related to practice, though it is common within my experiences with meditation. Maybe the question is unclear. In my experience, there is a recurring feeling or experience of 'now I am more conscious than I was just a second ago.' This might be the result of a "shift" in attention from thinking to 'the actual.' However, I'm not taking it for granted. 1. This appears to be true: sleep to waking is a good example of when the feeling arises, but also daydreaming to not daydreaming, from ideas to bodily sensations; 2. The appearance of this being a correct observation is itself just another appearance no more or less valuable than any other appearance; For example, profundity is a feeling, it isn't necessarily an indicator of a particular idea being actually profound or wise or insightful. As such, its best to let the feeling of profundity go before making any proclamations about the idea's inherent value. Likewise, this impression that 'right now I'm experiencing more consciousness than just before' might also be wise to distrust, as perhaps it's just an illusion as well. 3. There can be judgement, resistance as part and parcel to this observation. 'Sh!t I've been out to lunch for the last two minutes.' So the question is if Awakening, Truth Realization, etc. leads to the cessation of this phenomena (no 1, 2, or 3) or if it continues to happen but is just witnessed or whatever or if it happens but without any judgement (no 3). ZD says it depends on the person. We could say witnessing is always the case whether or not attention is placed there. (I'm equating the witnessing position of attention to what we're calling 'being conscious') Awakening brings with it a movement of attention from within the thought streams to the witnessing position outside the thoughts such that the thoughts are also witnessed. Once 'awake' one remains permanently in that witnessing position as identification with the thoughts is all that can draw attention back into them. The witness is not real, as it is also being observed. I'm just talking about as an orientation to thought. Maybe it seems odd that thinking can happen without a thinker, but that's always the case. Thinking is always observed.Stated very simply, the possessive I-thought is a misconception, but of course, simplicity is the raw material fer the pitchforks and the spark that lights the torches! |
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Post by justlikeyou on Aug 14, 2014 14:58:08 GMT -5
Since he didn't speak English at all, I'm suspicious of the translations. Consciousness and the Absolute.
Translation by Jean Dunn.
February 12, 1981
"Nothing in the world is of any use to me. That very identity with which you try to understand everything is unreal. Daily you have to convince yourself about yourself. You have to carry out your life, first of all assuring yourself that you are. Nothing has happened except the knowingness, only a pin-prick of knowingness against the background of your innate nature of no-knowingness, and this is of no help at all."
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That's succinct.
It is. But unless it is seen directly, it remains ungraspable. |
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very well said.
