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Post by zendancer on Mar 6, 2018 5:06:28 GMT -5
I scanned 3 Pillars and also several other Zen books, and most writers seem to equate a CC experience with enlightenment, and some writers use both the term kensho and satori as equivalent meanings of the term "enlightenment," but this is obviously not the case. Sekida says that absolute samadhi is the precursor to kensho, and he appears to think that absolute samadhi (nirvikalpa samadhi) and positive samadhi are the most important things to attain in Zen training. From my POV this emphasis derives from his own experience, and is way off the mark. From reading about Sekida, it appears that he attained freedom, but he was deeply conditioned by the Zen tradition, and never seems to have realized that many of the things Zen emphasizes are just part of that tradition, and are, IMO, extremely misguided. If I were still involved in the Zen tradition, I would tell people that the term "satori" ought to be used only as a synonym for SR. When I was involved in the Zen tradition, I used to wonder, "Will it always be necessary to meditate every day in the way that these people claim?" Today, I know that the answer to that question is a resounding "No." Zazen is just one way of temporarily silencing the mind to enhance the likelihood of realizations. ATA-T was equally effective for me, and after SR, the entire idea of a daily practice becomes a complete nonsense. The real goal of the spiritual search is to find out what's going on (to see the Big Picture), and to then live an ordinary life in a psychologically-unified state of mind--to live in what some of us call "the natural state." The ultimate realization can be stated as, "I am what is, and there is no other, and whatever is happening is an unfoldment of what I am." Going to the grocery store is what I am; looking at a sunset is what I am, reflecting about what I am is what I am, and even being deluded about what I am is what I am. There is no inside or outside to what I am. This body/mind, like all body/minds, is one-with the Infinite, and whatever it does is a movement of the Infinite. My impression, and I am just speaking from memory of my early seeker days when I read every zen book I could get my hands on, is that there's a difference between the early zen (chan) in China and the later zen in Japan. The native religion and mindset of China is Taoism, not Buddhism. And to me it seemed that when zen moved to Japan that they went almost fully Buddhism. I remember some of the older chan texts actually referencing the Daodejing. What I also noticed is that those who translated early Chinese zen (chan) texts all used later Japanese commentaries as their blueprints. So now that you are somehow confirming that there is a certain uncertainty or confusion regarding Satori and it's actual meaning, I think maybe something got lost in translation when chan died out in China and was later resurrected as zen in Japan. I had no idea they were passing on such nonsense. Fascinating! Yes, Zen people are eaten up with the idea that a daily mediation practice is the most important thing in life. They also have the idea that one shouldn't talk about personal experiences because such talk would be evidence of ego. After an initial CC experience, I wrote to a ZM in California, described the experience, and asked about it. What I was seeking was some sort of context, and advice concerning what to do next. I got a letter back from one of his advanced followers that never mentioned the experience (presumably because it was something that had happened in the past). She advised me to pursue meticulous breath awareness exercises, and gave no context or further explanation. I spent years in Zen trying to understand what was going on, but finally had to figure it out for myself. I met people who had done hard-core meditation for 30 years who were totally clueless, and the most common thing I heard from lay people who had meditated for ten years or more was, "I have no idea why I'm doing this, or what I'm supposed to get from it." I don;t remember any discussions regarding Self-realization, or any discussions of the other important realizations that occur as one attempts to escape from the consensus trance state. I have dozens of stories about crazy statements that I heard from long-time practitioners. By the time Zen practitioners wake up, if they wake up, they're habituated to a daily zazen practice, and they keep doing it because of statements like the one by Dogen--"Zazen is enlightenment and enlightenment is zazen." No, it's much simpler than that. Enlightenment is living an ordinary life after becoming free from the illusions created by cultural indoctrination; after seeing that reality is an infinite intelligent unified living whole; and after understanding the overall context of human life. IMO, teachers like Adya and those in the Advaita traditions are far better pointers to what's going on than those in the Zen tradition. I once listened to a dharma talk by a soon-to-be ZM who spent twenty minutes explaining how important it was to hold the thumbs exactly in the right way in the cosmic mudra position! Clueless!
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Post by zendancer on Mar 6, 2018 5:29:32 GMT -5
"The idea of a daily practice becomes a complete nonsense" after enlightenment, it is said. That may be the rare case after complete unalloyed enlightenment but I prefer to take the view that there are levels of enlightenment and that continuing meditation can enrich and deepen the experience of enlightenment. Some might say that in that case we are not talking about real enlightenment, but I think that would be a bit of a harsh judgement! I could write another book about this subject--haha--because there are so many aspects to it. Sure, some people will want to formally meditate after waking up, and there's nothing wrong with that. Deep samadhi is blissful for one thing, and kenshos can continue to occur after SR. There are times when meditation can be the most natural thing in the world in response to life events, but I'm primarily poking fun at the militaristic approach one often finds in Zen, and the idea that a formal daily practice is an absolute necessity. I was lucky because I discovered that informally looking and listening (ATA-T) was just as effective as formalized breath awareness practice methods, and was not dependent upon time, place, or conditions. As a result, my attitude is a bit looser and more open that what is usually encountered in Zen, which is often filled with lots of "shoulds" and "oughts." Like Reefs, I suspect that the militaristic aspects of current Zen training come from the Japanese culture, and that the Zen Taoists had a much more laid back approach. Happily, SR is becoming increasingly common, and it's occurring outside of all formal religious traditions, so I think we'll see a far less rigid approach toward meditation in future teachings than in the past.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 6, 2018 6:01:46 GMT -5
My impression, and I am just speaking from memory of my early seeker days when I read every zen book I could get my hands on, is that there's a difference between the early zen (chan) in China and the later zen in Japan. The native religion and mindset of China is Taoism, not Buddhism. And to me it seemed that when zen moved to Japan that they went almost fully Buddhism. I remember some of the older chan texts actually referencing the Daodejing. What I also noticed is that those who translated early Chinese zen (chan) texts all used later Japanese commentaries as their blueprints. So now that you are somehow confirming that there is a certain uncertainty or confusion regarding Satori and it's actual meaning, I think maybe something got lost in translation when chan died out in China and was later resurrected as zen in Japan. I had no idea they were passing on such nonsense. Fascinating! Yes, Zen people are eaten up with the idea that a daily mediation practice is the most important thing in life. They also have the idea that one shouldn't talk about personal experiences because such talk would be evidence of ego. After an initial CC experience, I wrote to a ZM in California, described the experience, and asked about it. What I was seeking was some sort of context, and advice concerning what to do next. I got a letter back from one of his advanced followers that never mentioned the experience (presumably because it was something that had happened in the past). She advised me to pursue meticulous breath awareness exercises, and gave no context or further explanation. I spent years in Zen trying to understand what was going on, but finally had to figure it out for myself. I met people who had done hard-core meditation for 30 years who were totally clueless, and the most common thing I heard from lay people who had meditated for ten years or more was, "I have no idea why I'm doing this, or what I'm supposed to get from it." I don;t remember any discussions regarding Self-realization, or any discussions of the other important realizations that occur as one attempts to escape from the consensus trance state. I have dozens of stories about crazy statements that I heard from long-time practitioners. By the time Zen practitioners wake up, if they wake up, they're habituated to a daily zazen practice, and they keep doing it because of statements like the one by Dogen--"Zazen is enlightenment and enlightenment is zazen." No, it's much simpler than that. Enlightenment is living an ordinary life after becoming free from the illusions created by cultural indoctrination; after seeing that reality is an infinite intelligent unified living whole; and after understanding the overall context of human life. IMO, teachers like Adya and those in the Advaita traditions are far better pointers to what's going on than those in the Zen tradition. I once listened to a dharma talk by a soon-to-be ZM who spent twenty minutes explaining how important it was to hold the thumbs exactly in the right way in the cosmic mudra position! Clueless! Wow! Thanks for sharing. If you only had something like this forum in those days, eh? So they are basically stuck in ritual. Then this is no different from the western traditions. I guess that's just the way it goes, once it gets institutionalized, it becomes lifeless. Not sure if you are familiar with Jan van de Wetering, but he has similar stories to tell in his books. He actually went to Japan for a while and later spend some time with western zen teachers in the US. His stories are almost identical with your stories. He had a fellow western zen student in Japan who learned Japanese, spoke it fluently and solved about 3000 koans. Everyone thought he got it. But he visited Jan many years later and told him that he still had no clue and that he now was more interested in finding a wife than enlightenment, haha. I'd say koans have their place, they can be an effective tool, but it seems that many just use them to hide behind (seemingly) profound riddles. I think you are right, there's a much more relaxed attitude in the Advaita tradition. The zen community seems rather tense. Mayne that has something to do with the Japanese cultural influence which is a bit militaristic and extreme. Now, the zen tradition with its focus on CC keeps it very much down to earth and on a visceral level with only a bare minimum of concepts. The advaita tradition, however, with its focus on SR is far more prone to intellectualizing. So you are probably not going to find any solipsists in the zen tradition but plenty in the advaita tradition.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 6, 2018 7:33:53 GMT -5
Yes, Zen people are eaten up with the idea that a daily mediation practice is the most important thing in life. They also have the idea that one shouldn't talk about personal experiences because such talk would be evidence of ego. After an initial CC experience, I wrote to a ZM in California, described the experience, and asked about it. What I was seeking was some sort of context, and advice concerning what to do next. I got a letter back from one of his advanced followers that never mentioned the experience (presumably because it was something that had happened in the past). She advised me to pursue meticulous breath awareness exercises, and gave no context or further explanation. I spent years in Zen trying to understand what was going on, but finally had to figure it out for myself. I met people who had done hard-core meditation for 30 years who were totally clueless, and the most common thing I heard from lay people who had meditated for ten years or more was, "I have no idea why I'm doing this, or what I'm supposed to get from it." I don;t remember any discussions regarding Self-realization, or any discussions of the other important realizations that occur as one attempts to escape from the consensus trance state. I have dozens of stories about crazy statements that I heard from long-time practitioners. By the time Zen practitioners wake up, if they wake up, they're habituated to a daily zazen practice, and they keep doing it because of statements like the one by Dogen--"Zazen is enlightenment and enlightenment is zazen." No, it's much simpler than that. Enlightenment is living an ordinary life after becoming free from the illusions created by cultural indoctrination; after seeing that reality is an infinite intelligent unified living whole; and after understanding the overall context of human life. IMO, teachers like Adya and those in the Advaita traditions are far better pointers to what's going on than those in the Zen tradition. I once listened to a dharma talk by a soon-to-be ZM who spent twenty minutes explaining how important it was to hold the thumbs exactly in the right way in the cosmic mudra position! Clueless! Wow! Thanks for sharing. If you only had something like this forum in those days, eh? So they are basically stuck in ritual. Then this is no different from the western traditions. I guess that's just the way it goes, once it gets institutionalized, it becomes lifeless. Not sure if you are familiar with Jan van de Wetering, but he has similar stories to tell in his books. He actually went to Japan for a while and later spend some time with western zen teachers in the US. His stories are almost identical with your stories. He had a fellow western zen student in Japan who learned Japanese, spoke it fluently and solved about 3000 koans. Everyone thought he got it. But he visited Jan many years later and told him that he still had no clue and that he now was more interested in finding a wife than enlightenment, haha. I'd say koans have their place, they can be an effective tool, but it seems that many just use them to hide behind (seemingly) profound riddles. I think you are right, there's a much more relaxed attitude in the Advaita tradition. The zen community seems rather tense. Mayne that has something to do with the Japanese cultural influence which is a bit militaristic and extreme. Now, the zen tradition with its focus on CC keeps it very much down to earth and on a visceral level with only a bare minimum of concepts. The advaita tradition, however, with its focus on SR is far more prone to intellectualizing. So you are probably not going to find any solipsists in the zen tradition but plenty in the advaita tradition. The issue is one of attaining unity. Zen has a term for this; it's called "positive samadhi," but it is rarely discussed. It's what Ramana called "sahaja samadhi" but Ramana used the term to refer to that state when it's permanent rather than temporary. Most people feel separated from life because they think they are separate volitional entities. A sage loses this sense of separation and, in a sense, disappears into the activity of life. Most people periodically enter states of positive samadhi, when they lose themselves in some activity, but unless they've attained SR, they almost invariably fall out of it. Positive samadhi that becomes permanent is the goalless goal. Anyone who attains that way of life becomes one-with whatever is happening because there's no longer a sense of a separate self keeping one in the position of an observer. The observer and the observed both disappear into a seamless flow of being. The intellect no longer keeps one isolated in an artificial world of things and events being witnessed by a person psychologically separate from the action.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 6, 2018 9:33:22 GMT -5
"The idea of a daily practice becomes a complete nonsense" after enlightenment, it is said. That may be the rare case after complete unalloyed enlightenment but I prefer to take the view that there are levels of enlightenment and that continuing meditation can enrich and deepen the experience of enlightenment. Some might say that in that case we are not talking about real enlightenment, but I think that would be a bit of a harsh judgement! I could write another book about this subject--haha--because there are so many aspects to it. Sure, some people will want to formally meditate after waking up, and there's nothing wrong with that. Deep samadhi is blissful for one thing, and kenshos can continue to occur after SR. There are times when meditation can be the most natural thing in the world in response to life events, but I'm primarily poking fun at the militaristic approach one often finds in Zen, and the idea that a formal daily practice is an absolute necessity. I was lucky because I discovered that informally looking and listening (ATA-T) was just as effective as formalized breath awareness practice methods, and was not dependent upon time, place, or conditions. As a result, my attitude is a bit looser and more open that what is usually encountered in Zen, which is often filled with lots of "shoulds" and "oughts." Like Reefs, I suspect that the militaristic aspects of current Zen training come from the Japanese culture, and that the Zen Taoists had a much more laid back approach. Happily, SR is becoming increasingly common, and it's occurring outside of all formal religious traditions, so I think we'll see a far less rigid approach toward meditation in future teachings than in the past. The term Zen Taoists seems quite accurate when talking about the early zen tradition. I just checked with one of the older Chinese zen (chan) texts, The Records of Linji (Rinzai) and there the ZM is actually addressing his monks as 'followers of the Tao' (道流)!
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Post by Reefs on Mar 6, 2018 9:50:08 GMT -5
Wow! Thanks for sharing. If you only had something like this forum in those days, eh? So they are basically stuck in ritual. Then this is no different from the western traditions. I guess that's just the way it goes, once it gets institutionalized, it becomes lifeless. Not sure if you are familiar with Jan van de Wetering, but he has similar stories to tell in his books. He actually went to Japan for a while and later spend some time with western zen teachers in the US. His stories are almost identical with your stories. He had a fellow western zen student in Japan who learned Japanese, spoke it fluently and solved about 3000 koans. Everyone thought he got it. But he visited Jan many years later and told him that he still had no clue and that he now was more interested in finding a wife than enlightenment, haha. I'd say koans have their place, they can be an effective tool, but it seems that many just use them to hide behind (seemingly) profound riddles. I think you are right, there's a much more relaxed attitude in the Advaita tradition. The zen community seems rather tense. Mayne that has something to do with the Japanese cultural influence which is a bit militaristic and extreme. Now, the zen tradition with its focus on CC keeps it very much down to earth and on a visceral level with only a bare minimum of concepts. The advaita tradition, however, with its focus on SR is far more prone to intellectualizing. So you are probably not going to find any solipsists in the zen tradition but plenty in the advaita tradition. The issue is one of attaining unity. Zen has a term for this; it's called "positive samadhi," but it is rarely discussed. It's what Ramana called "sahaja samadhi" but Ramana used the term to refer to that state when it's permanent rather than temporary. Most people feel separated from life because they think they are separate volitional entities. A sage loses this sense of separation and, in a sense, disappears into the activity of life. Most people periodically enter states of positive samadhi, when they lose themselves in some activity, but unless they've attained SR, they almost invariably fall out of it. Positive samadhi that becomes permanent is the goalless goal. Anyone who attains that way of life becomes one-with whatever is happening because there's no longer a sense of a separate self keeping one in the position of an observer. The observer and the observed both disappear into a seamless flow of being. The intellect no longer keeps one isolated in an artificial world of things and events being witnessed by a person psychologically separate from the action. That's really well said. And this is also the teachings of Seth and A-H in a nutshell. I've been pointing out a while ago that what Seth and A-H teach is flow experience. The end goal is a continuous flow experience, a life in flow. So maybe we could say that sahaja samadhi is where all these different teachings meet. It's just that zen/advaita and Seth/A-H approach this subject from opposite ends. Seth/A-H address the ego, zen/advaita go right past it.
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Post by laughter on Mar 6, 2018 11:33:29 GMT -5
"The idea of a daily practice becomes a complete nonsense" after enlightenment, it is said. That may be the rare case after complete unalloyed enlightenment but I prefer to take the view that there are levels of enlightenment and that continuing meditation can enrich and deepen the experience of enlightenment. Some might say that in that case we are not talking about real enlightenment, but I think that would be a bit of a harsh judgement! I still meditate, but sporadically ... and other than a real intense period of conscious seeking that's all it ever was, sporadic .. .. but some times more constant than others, and I reached some of the most interesting and deepest states years after the seeking was over. There's obviously something deeply profound and excruciatingly beautiful that can be found in literal silence and stillness. Some people and institutionalized spiritual groups center themselves on the ritual of it, and that is what it is. Like any other sort of center, ritualized silence can form the basis for an attachment around which a false sense of identity can coalesce. But self-realization is the realization of the absence of limitation, and I find ZD's nonsense comment to be somewhat subjective. I'd agree that someone meditating or praying daily in order to deepen their state of enlightenment or get closer to God or to help them find the existential truth is practicing based on a misconception, but to say that a "realized person" wouldn't meditate daily is an expectation waiting to be dashed. And just because the practice is founded on a misconception doesn't mean that it's all bad. Some people who identify themselves with one spiritual tradition or another benefit in a myriad of ways from that material identity. Not everyone is gonna' set their hair on fire over the existential truth .. but of course, that's a backward-looking comment on the typical conditioned behavior of most people in the past.
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Post by laughter on Mar 6, 2018 11:49:52 GMT -5
"The idea of a daily practice becomes a complete nonsense" after enlightenment, it is said. That may be the rare case after complete unalloyed enlightenment but I prefer to take the view that there are levels of enlightenment and that continuing meditation can enrich and deepen the experience of enlightenment. Some might say that in that case we are not talking about real enlightenment, but I think that would be a bit of a harsh judgement! I could write another book about this subject--haha--because there are so many aspects to it. Sure, some people will want to formally meditate after waking up, and there's nothing wrong with that. Deep samadhi is blissful for one thing, and kenshos can continue to occur after SR. There are times when meditation can be the most natural thing in the world in response to life events, but I'm primarily poking fun at the militaristic approach one often finds in Zen, and the idea that a formal daily practice is an absolute necessity. I was lucky because I discovered that informally looking and listening (ATA-T) was just as effective as formalized breath awareness practice methods, and was not dependent upon time, place, or conditions. As a result, my attitude is a bit looser and more open that what is usually encountered in Zen, which is often filled with lots of "shoulds" and "oughts." Like Reefs, I suspect that the militaristic aspects of current Zen training come from the Japanese culture, and that the Zen Taoists had a much more laid back approach. Happily, SR is becoming increasingly common, and it's occurring outside of all formal religious traditions, so I think we'll see a far less rigid approach toward meditation in future teachings than in the past. There seems to me a pattern to the way culture has changed in the past. The kernel of truth in a pointing becomes the basis that an institution forms around, and then over time that kernel gets buried and obscured. An idea from Gurdi' the pilgrim's shared is interesting along these lines: the concept of a "teacher" that emerges from and then fades back into his or her culture leaving no trace behind for an institution to form around. So there might be this trend now away from a rigid approach to meditation, and maybe that results in more people finding the existential truth in our current cultural context. But as the conditions that form this context change, the trend could eventually either become irrelevant, reverse itself or even form the basis for some new crystallized, institutional cultural artifact that will conspire to keep people asleep. IOW, I think the only sure thing we can say about the future is that the living truth will always present the potential to confound and defy any prediction.
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Post by laughter on Mar 6, 2018 11:59:38 GMT -5
Yes, Zen people are eaten up with the idea that a daily mediation practice is the most important thing in life. They also have the idea that one shouldn't talk about personal experiences because such talk would be evidence of ego. After an initial CC experience, I wrote to a ZM in California, described the experience, and asked about it. What I was seeking was some sort of context, and advice concerning what to do next. I got a letter back from one of his advanced followers that never mentioned the experience (presumably because it was something that had happened in the past). She advised me to pursue meticulous breath awareness exercises, and gave no context or further explanation. I spent years in Zen trying to understand what was going on, but finally had to figure it out for myself. I met people who had done hard-core meditation for 30 years who were totally clueless, and the most common thing I heard from lay people who had meditated for ten years or more was, "I have no idea why I'm doing this, or what I'm supposed to get from it." I don;t remember any discussions regarding Self-realization, or any discussions of the other important realizations that occur as one attempts to escape from the consensus trance state. I have dozens of stories about crazy statements that I heard from long-time practitioners. By the time Zen practitioners wake up, if they wake up, they're habituated to a daily zazen practice, and they keep doing it because of statements like the one by Dogen--"Zazen is enlightenment and enlightenment is zazen." No, it's much simpler than that. Enlightenment is living an ordinary life after becoming free from the illusions created by cultural indoctrination; after seeing that reality is an infinite intelligent unified living whole; and after understanding the overall context of human life. IMO, teachers like Adya and those in the Advaita traditions are far better pointers to what's going on than those in the Zen tradition. I once listened to a dharma talk by a soon-to-be ZM who spent twenty minutes explaining how important it was to hold the thumbs exactly in the right way in the cosmic mudra position! Clueless! Wow! Thanks for sharing. If you only had something like this forum in those days, eh? So they are basically stuck in ritual. Then this is no different from the western traditions. I guess that's just the way it goes, once it gets institutionalized, it becomes lifeless. Not sure if you are familiar with Jan van de Wetering, but he has similar stories to tell in his books. He actually went to Japan for a while and later spend some time with western zen teachers in the US. His stories are almost identical with your stories. He had a fellow western zen student in Japan who learned Japanese, spoke it fluently and solved about 3000 koans. Everyone thought he got it. But he visited Jan many years later and told him that he still had no clue and that he now was more interested in finding a wife than enlightenment, haha. I'd say koans have their place, they can be an effective tool, but it seems that many just use them to hide behind (seemingly) profound riddles. I think you are right, there's a much more relaxed attitude in the Advaita tradition. The zen community seems rather tense. Mayne that has something to do with the Japanese cultural influence which is a bit militaristic and extreme. Now, the zen tradition with its focus on CC keeps it very much down to earth and on a visceral level with only a bare minimum of concepts. The advaita tradition, however, with its focus on SR is far more prone to intellectualizing. So you are probably not going to find any solipsists in the zen tradition but plenty in the advaita tradition. But even in that lifelessness, isn't there the seed for something new?
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Post by Reefs on Mar 6, 2018 12:02:32 GMT -5
Some critters work collectively to support the group, like bees and ants. I don't believe there's some kind of biological communication going on, so it must be happening on another level. It makes me wonder if they are somehow self aware as a collective, and this somehow translates into individual self awareness. I've talked about the starling clouds before. I don't know how it's done, but it's not choreographed by bird brains. Wonderbeauty: I still think it's about the 'self-awareness' happening on a level prior to the appearance of collectivity (or individualtion). Anyway, I just wanted to mention how I watched a cool Attenborough documentary a few weeks back called Empire of the Ants which detailed how the ants are evolving. Diffeerent colonies of the same species that previously just annihilated each other on contact are starting to form communities, forming a super-colony. It kinda mirrors the history of man, and the complexity of their behaviour both individually and collectively is fascinating stuff. The individual colonies have long been thought of as a super-organism, so a bit like those forrests of trees that look individual but are connected by one root system beneath the surface, and I think it's the same with the ants, except the beneath the surface there doesn't refer to the ground. And more expansively, its easy enough to see how it could be applied to life in it's entirety, when we consider 'moving as One'.Worth a watch if anyones bored. Since you mentioned the word organism, just think about it in terms of a human body. There you have individual cells functioning on their own. And then you have organs that these cells form. And these organs also function on their own. And then you have the human body itself which is made up of these organs. And then you have the human body that is functioning on its own... See what I'm saying? You can draw the lines wherever you want. It doesn't really matter. The fact remains, everything is conscious, alive and intelligent. Doesn't matter if the context is electrons or galaxies.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 6, 2018 12:08:52 GMT -5
The issue is one of attaining unity. Zen has a term for this; it's called "positive samadhi," but it is rarely discussed. It's what Ramana called "sahaja samadhi" but Ramana used the term to refer to that state when it's permanent rather than temporary. Most people feel separated from life because they think they are separate volitional entities. A sage loses this sense of separation and, in a sense, disappears into the activity of life. Most people periodically enter states of positive samadhi, when they lose themselves in some activity, but unless they've attained SR, they almost invariably fall out of it. Positive samadhi that becomes permanent is the goalless goal. Anyone who attains that way of life becomes one-with whatever is happening because there's no longer a sense of a separate self keeping one in the position of an observer. The observer and the observed both disappear into a seamless flow of being. The intellect no longer keeps one isolated in an artificial world of things and events being witnessed by a person psychologically separate from the action. That's really well said. And this is also the teachings of Seth and A-H in a nutshell. I've been pointing out a while ago that what Seth and A-H teach is flow experience. The end goal is a continuous flow experience, a life in flow. So maybe we could say that sahaja samadhi is where all these different teachings meet. It's just that zen/advaita and Seth/A-H approach this subject from opposite ends. Seth/A-H address the ego, zen/advaita go right past it. Yes, and this is why Ramana said, "Nirvikalpa samadhi is the deepest samadhi, but sahaja samadhi is the highest samadhi." He called sahaja "the highest" because it's permanent, and because the ordinary sense of selfhood and separateness does not return. Even in the sahaja samadhi of everyday life (the natural state), the body/mind may meditate, may fall into nirvikalpa samadhi, and may experience kensho, but if any of that stuff happens, the ordinary sense of selfhood does not return afterwards. All events, whether ordinary or extraordinary, are simply part of the seamless flow of life.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 6, 2018 12:12:20 GMT -5
"The idea of a daily practice becomes a complete nonsense" after enlightenment, it is said. That may be the rare case after complete unalloyed enlightenment but I prefer to take the view that there are levels of enlightenment and that continuing meditation can enrich and deepen the experience of enlightenment. Some might say that in that case we are not talking about real enlightenment, but I think that would be a bit of a harsh judgement! I still meditate, but sporadically ... and other than a real intense period of conscious seeking that's all it ever was, sporadic .. .. but some times more constant than others, and I reached some of the most interesting and deepest states years after the seeking was over. There's obviously something deeply profound and excruciatingly beautiful that can be found in literal silence and stillness. Some people and institutionalized spiritual groups center themselves on the ritual of it, and that is what it is. Like any other sort of center, ritualized silence can form the basis for an attachment around which a false sense of identity can coalesce. But self-realization is the realization of the absence of limitation, and I find ZD's nonsense comment to be somewhat subjective. I'd agree that someone meditating or praying daily in order to deepen their state of enlightenment or get closer to God or to help them find the existential truth is practicing based on a misconception, but to say that a "realized person" wouldn't meditate daily is an expectation waiting to be dashed. And just because the practice is founded on a misconception doesn't mean that it's all bad. Some people who identify themselves with one spiritual tradition or another benefit in a myriad of ways from that material identity. Not everyone is gonna' set their hair on fire over the existential truth .. but of course, that's a backward-looking comment on the typical conditioned behavior of most people in the past. I agree, but my "nonsense" comment was directed at the rigid idea that a formal daily meditation practice is necessary--something most serious Zen students promulgate as a fundamental aspect of Zen.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 6, 2018 12:21:21 GMT -5
"The idea of a daily practice becomes a complete nonsense" after enlightenment, it is said. That may be the rare case after complete unalloyed enlightenment but I prefer to take the view that there are levels of enlightenment and that continuing meditation can enrich and deepen the experience of enlightenment. Some might say that in that case we are not talking about real enlightenment, but I think that would be a bit of a harsh judgement! I still meditate, but sporadically ... and other than a real intense period of conscious seeking that's all it ever was, sporadic .. .. but some times more constant than others, and I reached some of the most interesting and deepest states years after the seeking was over. There's obviously something deeply profound and excruciatingly beautiful that can be found in literal silence and stillness. Some people and institutionalized spiritual groups center themselves on the ritual of it, and that is what it is. Like any other sort of center, ritualized silence can form the basis for an attachment around which a false sense of identity can coalesce. But self-realization is the realization of the absence of limitation, and I find ZD's nonsense comment to be somewhat subjective. I'd agree that someone meditating or praying daily in order to deepen their state of enlightenment or get closer to God or to help them find the existential truth is practicing based on a misconception, but to say that a "realized person" wouldn't meditate daily is an expectation waiting to be dashed. And just because the practice is founded on a misconception doesn't mean that it's all bad. Some people who identify themselves with one spiritual tradition or another benefit in a myriad of ways from that material identity. Not everyone is gonna' set their hair on fire over the existential truth .. but of course, that's a backward-looking comment on the typical conditioned behavior of most people in the past. Just to be clear, I didn't say that a realized person wouldn't meditate daily. In fact, many realized people do. I was saying that it's possible to attain a level of freedom that is free of ALL ideas about what one SHOULD do, and ALL ideas promulgated by religious institutions. I remember reading about one ZM who said, "To attain the deepest enlightenment, one must leave everything behind, even Zen." That's the flavor of what I'm pointing to.
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Post by ouroboros on Mar 6, 2018 12:31:48 GMT -5
I still think it's about the 'self-awareness' happening on a level prior to the appearance of collectivity (or individualtion). Anyway, I just wanted to mention how I watched a cool Attenborough documentary a few weeks back called Empire of the Ants which detailed how the ants are evolving. Diffeerent colonies of the same species that previously just annihilated each other on contact are starting to form communities, forming a super-colony. It kinda mirrors the history of man, and the complexity of their behaviour both individually and collectively is fascinating stuff. The individual colonies have long been thought of as a super-organism, so a bit like those forrests of trees that look individual but are connected by one root system beneath the surface, and I think it's the same with the ants, except the beneath the surface there doesn't refer to the ground. And more expansively, its easy enough to see how it could be applied to life in it's entirety, when we consider 'moving as One'.Worth a watch if anyones bored. Since you mentioned the word organism, just think about it in terms of a human body. There you have individual cells functioning on their own. And then you have organs that these cells form. And these organs also function on their own. And then you have the human body itself which is made up of these organs. And then you have the human body that is functioning on its own... See what I'm saying? You can draw the lines wherever you want. It doesn't really matter. The fact remains, everything is conscious, alive and intelligent. Doesn't matter if the context is electrons or galaxies. Yeah I completely agree, and could relate to the Seth position on electrons, (although like Andrew, perhaps more the sentiment than the precise wording in that instance). But the wording wasn't particularly important there, just the acknowledgment that it's the way the Intelligence moves at the level of 'proto-expression', if that makes any sense, and ultimately as One. The aliveness is already there.
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Post by laughter on Mar 6, 2018 12:38:24 GMT -5
I still meditate, but sporadically ... and other than a real intense period of conscious seeking that's all it ever was, sporadic .. .. but some times more constant than others, and I reached some of the most interesting and deepest states years after the seeking was over. There's obviously something deeply profound and excruciatingly beautiful that can be found in literal silence and stillness. Some people and institutionalized spiritual groups center themselves on the ritual of it, and that is what it is. Like any other sort of center, ritualized silence can form the basis for an attachment around which a false sense of identity can coalesce. But self-realization is the realization of the absence of limitation, and I find ZD's nonsense comment to be somewhat subjective. I'd agree that someone meditating or praying daily in order to deepen their state of enlightenment or get closer to God or to help them find the existential truth is practicing based on a misconception, but to say that a "realized person" wouldn't meditate daily is an expectation waiting to be dashed. And just because the practice is founded on a misconception doesn't mean that it's all bad. Some people who identify themselves with one spiritual tradition or another benefit in a myriad of ways from that material identity. Not everyone is gonna' set their hair on fire over the existential truth .. but of course, that's a backward-looking comment on the typical conditioned behavior of most people in the past. I agree, but my "nonsense" comment was directed at the rigid idea that a formal daily meditation practice is necessary--something most serious Zen students promulgate as a fundamental aspect of Zen. Sure, I just wanted to drill down a little deeper on the idea. Couldn't we say that a Zen student who is meditating is doing exactly "what they are supposed to be doing", as they're doing it? Now, I want to plead guilty ahead of time to the morph here of dropping "as part of a required daily practice" from the scenario.
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