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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 12:13:40 GMT -5
Ok. I already asked about this and received no response from you, but I'll try again. We conversed in the past and you insisted that it could be realized that every thing is 'alive.' You spoke about this property of 'aliveness' being fundamental to all that is.....and you maintained that this seeing is an integral facet inherent in an SR that is 'complete.' That without seeing this, one is missing an important piece of the puzzle, kind of thing.
But in recent conversations you are really emphasizing that that____________ can only be pointed to. (In actuality, you've emphasized this in the past too, which is why I was so confused when the whole insistence upon 'alive' came up) The quote below is a good example;
ZD: "I don;t have any problem with the idea of panentheism, but I don't see why that idea in any way contradicts ND. If there is no twoness, then there's no room for distinctions of any kind, except in the most superficial sense. That which is infinite has no inside, outside, above, below, or any other attributable distinction. Anyone who apprehends THAT will understand why language can never capture any aspect of THAT via distinctions." And as I said in a previous post; I agree with all you say there, but am having trouble reconciling that with your insistence that all things arising in experience, are specifically 'alive.' Alive is an attributable distinction, and you say above 'there is no room for distinctions of any kind.'
Again, At best, when it comes to the inherent nature of THIS, all we can do it point. Firm arrival at a specific word, term, denoting property, quality, necessarily then means, we've stumbled.
I often use the phrase "the living truth" in the same way that I think Jesus intended it. I use it to evoke a feeling of life as visceral, dynamic, mysterious, juicy, and flowing rather than static and dead. I also use the word "alive" in the same way. It captures a sense of reality, of THIS, as a verb rather than a noun. I don't mean for the distinction to be taken in an extremely rigid sense or for people to get attached to it. It's an attempt to capture the flavor of what I experienced in a CC and at other subsequent times (though never as strongly as during the CC). I was so stunned at the aliveness of reality that I apprehended that I remember thinking something along the lines of, "OMG, everything is alive. Even the air, the ground, and the space between things is alive. There's nothing dead anywhere! The whole blooming thing is alive." Eckhart uses the same kinds of words when he talks about "feeling the aliveness" in one's hands or body. One difference between the Zen tradition and the Advaita tradition is that Zen rarely uses the dream metaphor, and Zen people rarely think about consciousness in any way separate from "what is." IOW, Zen people look at the world in a more concrete way, which is a bit hard to explain, and perhaps can only be grokked. If someone said to a Zen Master, "All there is is consciousness," or "Life is nothing but a dream," the ZM would probably conk him/her on the head with a Zen stick, and say something like, "Does that feel like a dream to you?"  Although I left the Zen tradition twenty years ago because I prefer the unstructured approach of Advaita satsangs and retreats, I still appreciate the Zen matter-of-fact down-to-earth concrete approach to everyday life. When I use the word THIS, I'm using it to point to both the solidity of a rock as well as to the pure awareness of nirvikalpa samadhi. ZD:" I don't mean for the distinction to be taken in an extremely rigid sense or for people to get attached to it."
Hmmm....It was you though who insisted that the 'aliveness' was a Truth realization, no?....so not really accurate to imply that other people got attached to it...or mistook it in a rigid sense. You were quite rigid about SR not being complete unless one had realized this 'aliveness' that pervades everything.
If not for your insistence that A CC/Kensho revealed that it was all alive, and that you had certain knowing now of this, I would not be asking about it.
This is the first time you are talking about merely trying to express the 'feeling and flavor' of life.
If that's all you were saying from the get-go, you would not have received any argument from me. I too experience the arising world in it's totality as alive, vibrant, intelligent. That's different though from 'realizing' it be such.
Feelings and flavours are transient, temporal arisings, of the realm of that which comes and goes and do not speak to that which abides...that which has no quality, flavor, property.
Again, it was you who said this:
ZD" then there's no room for distinctions of any kind, except in the most superficial sense. That which is infinite has no inside, outside, above, below, or any other attributable distinction. Anyone who apprehends THAT will understand why language can never capture any aspect of THAT via distinctions."
I'm guess what I'm really asking then, is if you stand by that or do you waffle? Are these times where you see there's no room for distinctions and that language can never capture any aspect of that via distinctions...but other times you see there IS room for distinctions?
It's just that both can't be true. You can't on one hand claim that you've realized that it's all alive but then go on to say that it's True that there's no room for distinctions of any kind.
The assertion that 'there's no room for distinctions of any kind' has to trump/transcend the assertion about aliveness.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 12:15:37 GMT -5
Ok. I already asked about this and received no response from you, but I'll try again.
We conversed in the past and you insisted that it could be realized that every thing is 'alive.' You spoke about this property of 'aliveness' being fundamental to all that is.....and you maintained that this seeing is an integral facet inherent in an SR that is 'complete.' That without seeing this, one is missing an important piece of the puzzle, kind of thing.
But in recent conversations you are really emphasizing that that____________ can only be pointed to. (In actuality, you've emphasized this in the past too, which is why I was so confused when the whole insistence upon 'alive' came up) The quote below is a good example;
ZD: "I don;t have any problem with the idea of panentheism, but I don't see why that idea in any way contradicts ND. If there is no twoness, then there's no room for distinctions of any kind, except in the most superficial sense. That which is infinite has no inside, outside, above, below, or any other attributable distinction. Anyone who apprehends THAT will understand why language can never capture any aspect of THAT via distinctions."
And as I said in a previous post; I agree with all you say there, but am having trouble reconciling that with your insistence that all things arising in experience, are specifically 'alive.' Alive is an attributable distinction, and you say above 'there is no room for distinctions of any kind.'
Again, At best, when it comes to the inherent nature of THIS, all we can do it point. Firm arrival at a specific word, term, denoting property, quality, necessarily then means, we've stumbled.
Did you ever consider the possibility that your conclusion is incorrect? What conclusion are you speaking of? The stumbled bit?
When I talk about this stuff I'm speaking from realization which is very different from an arrived at conclusion. But if you can specify what you're talking about, I can likely better address.
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Post by satchitananda on Mar 12, 2019 12:17:32 GMT -5
Because it works! I asked if the fact that everything is an appearance has any significance to the seeker who is practicing. If the practicer thinks that he has volition and he is a doer who is on a path and practicing and he hasn't heard your words that it's just all an appearance, it makes no difference. He will continue to practice. if you tell him he's not the doer and it's just an appearance he will still continue to practice. It's not really useful to say that everything is just an appearance because you will still continue to eat food, go for walks in the forest, do your work, have relationships and everything else. Who cares whether it's an appearance? I'm on board with everything you say there except the bolded.
Practice per se neither causes nor prevents SR. However, so long as there's a doer/seeker/practicer in play, Self is obscured.
That's why you're on a path doing practice as a doer. To reveal the Self and to know you are not the doer. You've got the cart before the horse. |
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Post by satchitananda on Mar 12, 2019 12:21:00 GMT -5
I'm on board with everything you say there except the bolded.
Practice per se neither causes nor prevents SR. However, so long as there's a doer/seeker/practicer in play, Self is obscured.
Ditto, and the fact that it DOESN'T always work, should give pause. Zen has a famous koan about this specific issue. It goes like this: A zen monk sat in meditation for a million kalpas (trillions of years), but never woke up. Why? This koan is not answered with words, but there is a definite simple answer that explicates the matter. I remember the first time I went to a satsang with Gangaji. She attacked the idea of practice as a way to become enlightened, and I was shocked, because I was very attached to the idea of practice at that time. Later, I understood what she was pointing to, and I stopped using the word "practice" because it implies things that often lead people in the wrong direction. Sure, some people practice meditation and wake up in six months, but other people practice meditation for forty years and never have a single significant insight. Why? Practicing running a hundred metres as fast as you can doesn't always work to get you the gold medal. Lying down on the grass won't either. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 12:23:18 GMT -5
I'm on board with everything you say there except the bolded.
Practice per se neither causes nor prevents SR. However, so long as there's a doer/seeker/practicer in play, Self is obscured.
That's why you're on a path doing practice as a doer. To reveal the Self and to know you are not the doer. You've got the cart before the horse. Does the path/practice though actually reveal the Self? I say no. In fact, the one who thinks it will reveal is what is actually obscuring the light. |
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Post by laughter on Mar 12, 2019 12:25:05 GMT -5
Lost me here. Why the necessity of an imaginary entity? Yes, As I see it, the imagined entity, the mind invoked intermediary, is what causes all the problems in the first place.
In SR, it's that imagined entity that gets seen through and in that, it becomes crystal clear just how unnecessary an intermediary ever was.
Reef's assertion almost reads to me as though he is saying that functionality requires one to continue to imagine that separation is the case...?.....which would be very strange. Anyway, I look forward to hearing more from him on this.
Not to speak for Reefs here, but I took what he wrote to mean that as we interact with other's we project an image, nothing more, nothing less. |
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Post by zendancer on Mar 12, 2019 12:27:12 GMT -5
Ditto, and the fact that it DOESN'T always work, should give pause. Zen has a famous koan about this specific issue. It goes like this: A zen monk sat in meditation for a million kalpas (trillions of years), but never woke up. Why? This koan is not answered with words, but there is a definite simple answer that explicates the matter. I remember the first time I went to a satsang with Gangaji. She attacked the idea of practice as a way to become enlightened, and I was shocked, because I was very attached to the idea of practice at that time. Later, I understood what she was pointing to, and I stopped using the word "practice" because it implies things that often lead people in the wrong direction. Sure, some people practice meditation and wake up in six months, but other people practice meditation for forty years and never have a single significant insight. Why? Practicing running a hundred metres as fast as you can doesn't always work to get you the gold medal. Lying down on the grass won't either. Practicing in order to wake up isn't like practicing to run a race for a medal. |
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Post by satchitananda on Mar 12, 2019 12:28:09 GMT -5
That's why you're on a path doing practice as a doer. To reveal the Self and to know you are not the doer. You've got the cart before the horse. Does the path/practice though actually reveal the Self? I say no. In fact, the one who thinks it will reveal is what is actually obscuring the light. So what does reveal the Self? |
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Post by satchitananda on Mar 12, 2019 12:30:09 GMT -5
Practicing running a hundred metres as fast as you can doesn't always work to get you the gold medal. Lying down on the grass won't either. Practicing in order to wake up isn't like practicing to run a race for a medal. In what way doesn't the analogy work for you? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 12:33:30 GMT -5
Does the path/practice though actually reveal the Self? I say no. In fact, the one who thinks it will reveal is what is actually obscuring the light. So what does reveal the Self? No-thing that is within the grasp of the person. The person has to get seen through, fall away. There is no doing, no happening that leads to or causes that. It's lousy news for the avid seeker, but it's True. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 12:35:36 GMT -5
Did you ever consider the possibility that your conclusion is incorrect? What conclusion are you speaking of? The stumbled bit?
When I talk about this stuff I'm speaking from realization which is very different from an arrived at conclusion. But if you can specify what you're talking about, I can likely better address.
Who are you talking about this stuff to? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 12:39:54 GMT -5
Yes, As I see it, the imagined entity, the mind invoked intermediary, is what causes all the problems in the first place.
In SR, it's that imagined entity that gets seen through and in that, it becomes crystal clear just how unnecessary an intermediary ever was.
Reef's assertion almost reads to me as though he is saying that functionality requires one to continue to imagine that separation is the case...?.....which would be very strange. Anyway, I look forward to hearing more from him on this.
Not to speak for Reefs here, but I took what he wrote to mean that as we interact with other's we project an image, nothing more, nothing less. When using the term project here, do you mean 'give the sensation of solidity and physicality to' ? |
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Post by satchitananda on Mar 12, 2019 12:46:45 GMT -5
So what does reveal the Self? No-thing that is within the grasp of the person. The person has to get seen through, fall away. There is no doing, no happening that leads to or causes that. It's lousy news for the avid seeker, but it's True. Well fortunately the good news is that you're outvoted by the sages who emphasize the necessity of practice. |
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Post by laughter on Mar 12, 2019 12:46:46 GMT -5
Not to speak for Reefs here, but I took what he wrote to mean that as we interact with other's we project an image, nothing more, nothing less. When using the term project here, do you mean 'give the sensation of solidity and physicality to' ? One facet of what I'm referring to can be described that way perhaps, but that doesn't encapsulate what I mean, no. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2019 12:49:54 GMT -5
When using the term project here, do you mean 'give the sensation of solidity and physicality to' ? One facet of what I'm referring to can be described that way perhaps, but that doesn't encapsulate what I mean, no. Ok. |
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