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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2019 12:37:59 GMT -5
Could indeed be... but to be honest I've read his corpus and a lot of auxiliary texts, and it's a little hard to find evidence of that. There are a few bits and pieces, but that's it. The vast majority of his original, specifically written work, too -- not dialogues -- is steadfastly self-inquiry/pure jnana/surrender. Everything else he tends to funnel right into that. Yes that's true, the writings are those of a jnani as one would expect. I can't remember the publication but I read about many visitors who were encouraged by Ramana to continue with their practices. It may have been japa or devotional practice or giving service etc. It all depended on the individual. But of course if someone was ripe to hear the teaching of pure jnana then it would be offered. But he also said that Bhakta was no different to Jnana as they both resulted in surrender.It is one of the best wishes to have.
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Jul 13, 2019 12:58:21 GMT -5
Could indeed be... but to be honest I've read his corpus and a lot of auxiliary texts, and it's a little hard to find evidence of that. There are a few bits and pieces, but that's it. The vast majority of his original, specifically written work, too -- not dialogues -- is steadfastly self-inquiry/pure jnana/surrender. Everything else he tends to funnel right into that. Yes that's true, the writings are those of a jnani as one would expect. I can't remember the publication but I read about many visitors who were encouraged by Ramana to continue with their practices. It may have been japa or devotional practice or giving service etc. It all depended on the individual. But of course if someone was ripe to hear the teaching of pure jnana then it would be offered. But he also said that Bhakta was no different to Jnana as they both resulted in surrender. Definitely. In fact he basically would constantly define Bhakti as surrender.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 13, 2019 14:26:30 GMT -5
Thanks for the perspective ZD. It's particularly interesting to me 'cause my perceptions are based almost entirely on media consumption and other 2nd hand sources. From these forum dialogs and media, seems to me that folks often infer something from the rarity you describe: an aggrandized specialness. This can be either positive or negative: people can sometimes idolize the natural state, or, on the other hand, get really skeptical about it, in either impersonal and conceptual terms or in terms specific to one individual. But this is one of those books that are elegantly bound, in a language they can't read, 'cause the rarity, in this case, doesn't equate to any sort of existential championship or elite status. Yes, the "problem" I hear most about is either "feeling stuck" or feeling like a dry period has been entered in which nothing is happening. I can identify with both situations. In the Rinzai tradition of Zen when people work on koans, there is often a feeling of progress as they discover answers to koans, and as initial realizations often reinforce a sense of movement toward greater understanding. People realize that they've been living in a dream-like state of mind in the past, and they begin to pay more attention to the direct perception of whatever is happening in the present moment. This gives them the sense that they're living more fully in the NOW and gaining increased clarity about various issues. Sooner or later, however, realizations may cease to continue occurring, and difficult koans may fail to get resolved. This leads to a feeling of either becoming stuck or living in a sort of arid wasteland where all forward progress has been stymied. Both of these "problems" of course, are illusions associated with the idea that there is a "me" that made progress for a while, but eventually got bogged down. FWIW, after what seemed like fast progress with koans and several realizations, I went through a period of several years during which nothing significant seemed to be happening. I would then read a new book, become more motivated than usual, and practice more intensely. Sometimes this would result in resolving troublesome koans, and sometimes it would trigger new insights. After discovering the answers to perhaps two or three hundred formal koans and then resolving all of my personal koans (which I considered far more important than the formal koans), I reached a point where there was nothing left to do but what I was already doing--ATA-T on a daily basis and two or three types of sitting meditation pursued when I had free time in the evening. By that time I felt intuitively certain that if I just kept doing what I was doing sooner or later something would happen, and if nothing ever happened, there was nothing I could do about it. I knew that I did not feel free in the same way as I did after an initial dai kensho, but I had no idea why. I literally felt blocked in some strange way, as if there were some intangible barrier that prevented the sense of freedom that i remembered so well from 15 years earlier. This led to a lot of reflection about how the sense of selfhood would often disappear, but always eventually returned. That question gradually turned into a personal koan, the form of which was, "How is it possible to stay in a unity conscious state of mind permanently?" After the "me" vanished, and the sense of freedom that I remembered so well, returned for good, I finally understood. As you know, I consider the sense of selfhood some sort of thought structure, and when that collapses, the whole crazy game gets exposed. All that I can tell people who are stuck in the illusion of selfhood is to keep attention focused as much as possible upon what's happening in the present moment, to keep pursuing whatever meditative practice they most strongly resonate with, and to use self-referential thoughts like a dharma bell reminder to shift attention away from thoughts of either progress or lack of progress. Art Ticknor gives the same sort of advice. Bart Marshall flew over to talk with Douglas Harding about this issue when Harding was about 100 years old. As Bart was leaving, Harding said to him, "Simplify" and that did the trick. Either on the plane home or shortly after he arrived, he finally found what he had been looking for. Tess Hughes calls it "The Solid Ground of Being." She told me that she had always wondered where she had been located before she was born, and she eventually found out. I've gone on silent retreats with lots of different groups of people over the last fifteen years, but IMO the group with the largest number of serious seekers is TAT. I've been reading a new book, In Love With the Whole World, A Monk's Journey Through the Bardo of Living and Dying by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and came across a quote which I find relevant and interesting. It's a subject which has been discussed here in the past. "Most of us cannot track the dissolution of the senses as we fall asleep; partway through the process our awareness submits to sleep, just as the sense organs go. To be able to maintain recognition of awareness throughout the process takes a lot of practice and an extraordinarily sensitive mind, one as evolved as that of His Holiness, the Sixteenth Karmapa (Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, 1924-81). When he spoke of awareness, he meant pure, nondualistic awareness, awareness without an observer.I never me the Sixteenth Karmapa, but one of my older brothers was his attendant and shared a remarkable story. The Karmapa had arranged for a meeting... The Karmapa wanted to discuss a problem he was having with his meditation. ... The Karmapa reported that he could maintain his awareness throughout the entire day, and track the dissolutions right up to almost falling asleep. Once he was asleep, he would again recognize his awareness. There were these few moments each night he lost his recognition of awareness, and he sought advice on how to eliminate this interruption. The revered guest (a scholar-monk who had tutored the Dalai lama) listened, awestruck. He had never encountered such a stunning report of continuous recognition, and immediately made prostrations to the embodied wisdom before him. He then told the Karmapa he could not advise him... As inspiring as that story was, I had never gotten anywhere close to that degree of steady recognition. My efforts to practice sleep meditation during my first three-year retreat proved difficult. ..." pgs 111,112 In Love With the Whole World, 2019 emphasis sdp
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Post by zendancer on Jul 13, 2019 15:31:26 GMT -5
Yes, the "problem" I hear most about is either "feeling stuck" or feeling like a dry period has been entered in which nothing is happening. I can identify with both situations. In the Rinzai tradition of Zen when people work on koans, there is often a feeling of progress as they discover answers to koans, and as initial realizations often reinforce a sense of movement toward greater understanding. People realize that they've been living in a dream-like state of mind in the past, and they begin to pay more attention to the direct perception of whatever is happening in the present moment. This gives them the sense that they're living more fully in the NOW and gaining increased clarity about various issues. Sooner or later, however, realizations may cease to continue occurring, and difficult koans may fail to get resolved. This leads to a feeling of either becoming stuck or living in a sort of arid wasteland where all forward progress has been stymied. Both of these "problems" of course, are illusions associated with the idea that there is a "me" that made progress for a while, but eventually got bogged down. FWIW, after what seemed like fast progress with koans and several realizations, I went through a period of several years during which nothing significant seemed to be happening. I would then read a new book, become more motivated than usual, and practice more intensely. Sometimes this would result in resolving troublesome koans, and sometimes it would trigger new insights. After discovering the answers to perhaps two or three hundred formal koans and then resolving all of my personal koans (which I considered far more important than the formal koans), I reached a point where there was nothing left to do but what I was already doing--ATA-T on a daily basis and two or three types of sitting meditation pursued when I had free time in the evening. By that time I felt intuitively certain that if I just kept doing what I was doing sooner or later something would happen, and if nothing ever happened, there was nothing I could do about it. I knew that I did not feel free in the same way as I did after an initial dai kensho, but I had no idea why. I literally felt blocked in some strange way, as if there were some intangible barrier that prevented the sense of freedom that i remembered so well from 15 years earlier. This led to a lot of reflection about how the sense of selfhood would often disappear, but always eventually returned. That question gradually turned into a personal koan, the form of which was, "How is it possible to stay in a unity conscious state of mind permanently?" After the "me" vanished, and the sense of freedom that I remembered so well, returned for good, I finally understood. As you know, I consider the sense of selfhood some sort of thought structure, and when that collapses, the whole crazy game gets exposed. All that I can tell people who are stuck in the illusion of selfhood is to keep attention focused as much as possible upon what's happening in the present moment, to keep pursuing whatever meditative practice they most strongly resonate with, and to use self-referential thoughts like a dharma bell reminder to shift attention away from thoughts of either progress or lack of progress. Art Ticknor gives the same sort of advice. Bart Marshall flew over to talk with Douglas Harding about this issue when Harding was about 100 years old. As Bart was leaving, Harding said to him, "Simplify" and that did the trick. Either on the plane home or shortly after he arrived, he finally found what he had been looking for. Tess Hughes calls it "The Solid Ground of Being." She told me that she had always wondered where she had been located before she was born, and she eventually found out. I've gone on silent retreats with lots of different groups of people over the last fifteen years, but IMO the group with the largest number of serious seekers is TAT. I've been reading a new book, In Love With the Whole World, A Monk's Journey Through the Bardo of Living and Dying by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and came across a quote which I find relevant and interesting. It's a subject which has been discussed here in the past. "Most of us cannot track the dissolution of the senses as we fall asleep; partway through the process our awareness submits to sleep, just as the sense organs go. To be able to maintain recognition of awareness throughout the process takes a lot of practice and an extraordinarily sensitive mind, one as evolved as that of His Holiness, the Sixteenth Karmapa (Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, 1924-81). When he spoke of awareness, he meant pure, nondualistic awareness, awareness without an observer.I never me the Sixteenth Karmapa, but one of my older brothers was his attendant and shared a remarkable story. The Karmapa had arranged for a meeting... The Karmapa wanted to discuss a problem he was having with his meditation. ... The Karmapa reported that he could maintain his awareness throughout the entire day, and track the dissolutions right up to almost falling asleep. Once he was asleep, he would again recognize his awareness. There were these few moments each night he lost his recognition of awareness, and he sought advice on how to eliminate this interruption. The revered guest (a scholar-monk who had tutored the Dalai lama) listened, awestruck. He had never encountered such a stunning report of continuous recognition, and immediately made prostrations to the embodied wisdom before him. He then told the Karmapa he could not advise him... As inspiring as that story was, I had never gotten anywhere close to that degree of steady recognition. My efforts to practice sleep meditation during my first three-year retreat proved difficult. ..." pgs 111,112 In Love With the Whole World, 2019 emphasis sdp It's hard to know exactly what was meant by the quotes in the book you're reading, but there are several people who've claimed that after a particular event, awareness never ceased 24/7, and that it continued whether the body was awake or asleep. The one that immediately comes to mind is included in Suzanne Segal's book, "Collision with the Infinite." I was more interested in the quote, "When he spoke of awareness, he meant pure, nondualistic awareness without an observer." That could either mean nirvikalpa samadhi, or it could mean awareness post SR, and I would assume that the writer meant the latter. Awareness, of course, even in the waking state of all people, is non-dual, but because most people think about the world dualistically and self-referentially, this fact is rarely obvious. As Shakespeare noted, in a somewhat different context "...only thinking makes it so" (makes it appear that way).
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2019 7:50:47 GMT -5
I read one book about seven people who supposedly woke up as a result of being exposed to Tony's approach. I very much doubt that. In fact I doubt whether anyone has woken up as a result of going to a Tony Parsons satsang, unless by waking up you just mean some temporary stillness, but no Buddha has walked out of Parson's meetings. Neo advaita satsangs consist of an awful lot of talking about nondual concepts and pointers. That's okay to a limited extent as a preparation for a disciplined practice but these satsangs go on and on with the nondual conceptual talk. It's completely useless. Then if the ND teacher tells everyone they must practice self-inquiry, either they don't really understand it very well or they don't appreciate that not everyone is ready for it, that there has to be some preparation and some disciplined practice to go much much deeper into this. Ramana didn't tell everyone to practice self inquiry because he knew on a one-to-one basis what people were ready for. I have to say I can't stand these teachers and I can't bear to watch any YouTube videos of them. When a new interview comes up on batgap I usually watch it for about 2 minutes and then switch it off. The other side of the equation is that there are very very few serious seekers. That's why Self-realization is extremely rare. I have to confess, but Tony is one of my guilty pleasures. He's so jolly and fun; it's infectious. He's been slowing down though. There are fewer and fewer of his satsangs.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 15, 2019 12:06:20 GMT -5
I've been reading a new book, In Love With the Whole World, A Monk's Journey Through the Bardo of Living and Dying by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and came across a quote which I find relevant and interesting. It's a subject which has been discussed here in the past. "Most of us cannot track the dissolution of the senses as we fall asleep; partway through the process our awareness submits to sleep, just as the sense organs go. To be able to maintain recognition of awareness throughout the process takes a lot of practice and an extraordinarily sensitive mind, one as evolved as that of His Holiness, the Sixteenth Karmapa (Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, 1924-81). When he spoke of awareness, he meant pure, nondualistic awareness, awareness without an observer.I never me the Sixteenth Karmapa, but one of my older brothers was his attendant and shared a remarkable story. The Karmapa had arranged for a meeting... The Karmapa wanted to discuss a problem he was having with his meditation. ... The Karmapa reported that he could maintain his awareness throughout the entire day, and track the dissolutions right up to almost falling asleep. Once he was asleep, he would again recognize his awareness. There were these few moments each night he lost his recognition of awareness, and he sought advice on how to eliminate this interruption. The revered guest (a scholar-monk who had tutored the Dalai lama) listened, awestruck. He had never encountered such a stunning report of continuous recognition, and immediately made prostrations to the embodied wisdom before him. He then told the Karmapa he could not advise him... As inspiring as that story was, I had never gotten anywhere close to that degree of steady recognition. My efforts to practice sleep meditation during my first three-year retreat proved difficult. ..." pgs 111,112 In Love With the Whole World, 2019 emphasis sdp It's hard to know exactly what was meant by the quotes in the book you're reading, but there are several people who've claimed that after a particular event, awareness never ceased 24/7, and that it continued whether the body was awake or asleep. The one that immediately comes to mind is included in Suzanne Segal's book, "Collision with the Infinite." I was more interested in the quote, "When he spoke of awareness, he meant pure, nondualistic awareness without an observer." That could either mean nirvikalpa samadhi, or it could mean awareness post SR, and I would assume that the writer meant the latter. Awareness, of course, even in the waking state of all people, is non-dual, but because most people think about the world dualistically and self-referentially, this fact is rarely obvious. As Shakespeare noted, in a somewhat different context "...only thinking makes it so" (makes it appear that way). It's not hard to know what the quotes are referring to, so "not to know exactly what was meant" is a problem, but the bigger problem is to continually say it doesn't matter anyway. I'm sure sca, lolly or zazeniac would understand these quotes easily. I will try to illustrate. Draw a circle, this is the awareness say of a small child. Draw a square, somewhat larger. This represents all manner of conditioning {and this conditioning is what most people consider the self to be, the small s self}. Now put the circle in the square, this is the manner in which most people function, their awareness is *placed within* their conditioning, essentially trapped therein, [they are basically aware, psychologically, only of their conditioning, what they see psychologically, is a reflection of ~what they are~. A simple term for this is projection. (I got a little diverted there from my illustration) ]. Now the quote you expressed interest in: "When he spoke of awareness, he meant, nondualistic awareness without an observer". This is the circle in and of itself. Now we can show the practice Mingyur was referring to. Sometimes Mingyur was able to maintain awareness, and sometimes he lost awareness. Maintaining awareness means awareness-the-circle outside of the square-conditioning. Losing awareness means awareness/circle is inside the square-conditioning. Losing awareness means awareness is captured/held in conditioning. Awareness essentially disappears in a very functional sense (awareness in a very real functional sense becomes the conditioning). This is very simple. One is either aware, or not-aware. This troubles me because you seem not to know the difference, and you have explicitly stated previously that it doesn't matter if one is aware or not-aware. Anyone who really understands this I would think much prefers to live through awareness and not through conditioning, through the circle outside the square versus the circle inside the square. Now, the further quote. Mingyur gives the example of the 16th Karmapa who lives through his awareness, (almost) all the time, throughout the day, and night. But his awareness was not perfect because just as he was going to sleep, he lost his awareness, but it came back once he was asleep. The monk-scholar who he had gone to for advice, was astonished at his ability to stay in awareness throughout the day. He told the Karmapa, I can't teach you anything. (Anybody who understands this whole process knows that what the Karmapa could do is not easy). Now, you always say, there is no square, there is no circle, there is only What Is, All One. But there is a difference in the way one functions in life, which I've tried to show here (again).
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Post by satchitananda on Jul 15, 2019 12:53:49 GMT -5
Now, you always say, there is no square, there is no circle, there is only What Is, All One. But there is a difference in the way one functions in life, which I've tried to show here (again). I like the square/circle explanation. There can be pure awareness and also absorption in an object which is mixed in with pure awareness. So a glass of sugared water is what is, all one, but I can focus on the sweetness rather than the wetness.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 15, 2019 14:38:18 GMT -5
It's hard to know exactly what was meant by the quotes in the book you're reading, but there are several people who've claimed that after a particular event, awareness never ceased 24/7, and that it continued whether the body was awake or asleep. The one that immediately comes to mind is included in Suzanne Segal's book, "Collision with the Infinite." I was more interested in the quote, "When he spoke of awareness, he meant pure, nondualistic awareness without an observer." That could either mean nirvikalpa samadhi, or it could mean awareness post SR, and I would assume that the writer meant the latter. Awareness, of course, even in the waking state of all people, is non-dual, but because most people think about the world dualistically and self-referentially, this fact is rarely obvious. As Shakespeare noted, in a somewhat different context "...only thinking makes it so" (makes it appear that way). It's not hard to know what the quotes are referring to, so "not to know exactly what was meant" is a problem, but the bigger problem is to continually say it doesn't matter anyway. I'm sure sca, lolly or zazeniac would understand these quotes easily. I will try to illustrate. Draw a circle, this is the awareness say of a small child. Draw a square, somewhat larger. This represents all manner of conditioning {and this conditioning is what most people consider the self to be, the small s self}. Now put the circle in the square, this is the manner in which most people function, their awareness is *placed within* their conditioning, essentially trapped therein, [they are basically aware, psychologically, only of their conditioning, what they see psychologically, is a reflection of ~what they are~. A simple term for this is projection. (I got a little diverted there from my illustration) ]. Now the quote you expressed interest in: "When he spoke of awareness, he meant, nondualistic awareness without an observer". This is the circle in and of itself. Now we can show the practice Mingyur was referring to. Sometimes Mingyur was able to maintain awareness, and sometimes he lost awareness. Maintaining awareness means awareness-the-circle outside of the square-conditioning. Losing awareness means awareness/circle is inside the square-conditioning. Losing awareness means awareness is captured/held in conditioning. Awareness essentially disappears in a very functional sense (awareness in a very real functional sense becomes the conditioning). This is very simple. One is either aware, or not-aware. This troubles me because you seem not to know the difference, and you have explicitly stated previously that it doesn't matter if one is aware or not-aware. Anyone who really understands this I would think much prefers to live through awareness and not through conditioning, through the circle outside the square versus the circle inside the square. Now, the further quote. Mingyur gives the example of the 16th Karmapa who lives through his awareness, (almost) all the time, throughout the day, and night. But his awareness was not perfect because just as he was going to sleep, he lost his awareness, but it came back once he was asleep. The monk-scholar who he had gone to for advice, was astonished at his ability to stay in awareness throughout the day. He told the Karmapa, I can't teach you anything. (Anybody who understands this whole process knows that what the Karmapa could do is not easy). Now, you always say, there is no square, there is no circle, there is only What Is, All One. But there is a difference in the way one functions in life, which I've tried to show here (again). You may not understand or appreciate what I'm pointing to. Conventionally speaking, anyone who is not asleep is aware of "what is." "What is" includes thoughts, feelings, and direct sensory perception. S/he may be aware of what is sensed via sight, sound, smell, etc. or be aware of thoughts about "what is" or feelings, but the awareness is always present and it's non-dual. The non-duality of awareness usually isn't realized or recognized by most people, but it can become obvious to anyone who's capable of looking at the world in total mental silence for a sustained period of time and has discovered the difference between the world as it is and the world as it is generally conceived. You correctly state that most people live in a kind of dream state created and maintained by reflective thoughts, but even those people if not asleep are aware. People who have meditated for a fair amount of time discover that awareness throughout the day shifts back and forth between thoughts/feelings and direct sense perceptions. As the intellect becomes increasingly quiescent, and one "gets out of one's head" and begins to spend more time directly interacting with the world, many of the ideas that once were dominant about what's going on often collapse, and greater and greater clarity ensues. Awareness is actually 24/7, but most people are not aware of awareness when in deep sleep. As I noted, a few people have claimed to have experienced wide-awake awareness even when in deep sleep, but these examples are rare. My main point is that after SR, it no longer matters whether awareness focuses upon thoughts or feelings or "the exterior world" because inside and outside have ceased to be separate, and the entity that was once imagined to be oneself has vanished. There is only Self, or God, or whateverwewanttocallit, and THAT simply unfolds however it unfolds. The SVP is a figment of imagination.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 17, 2019 13:29:11 GMT -5
It's not hard to know what the quotes are referring to, so "not to know exactly what was meant" is a problem, but the bigger problem is to continually say it doesn't matter anyway. I'm sure sca, lolly or zazeniac would understand these quotes easily. I will try to illustrate. Draw a circle, this is the awareness say of a small child. Draw a square, somewhat larger. This represents all manner of conditioning {and this conditioning is what most people consider the self to be, the small s self}. Now put the circle in the square, this is the manner in which most people function, their awareness is *placed within* their conditioning, essentially trapped therein, [they are basically aware, psychologically, only of their conditioning, what they see psychologically, is a reflection of ~what they are~. A simple term for this is projection. (I got a little diverted there from my illustration) ]. Now the quote you expressed interest in: "When he spoke of awareness, he meant, nondualistic awareness without an observer". This is the circle in and of itself. Now we can show the practice Mingyur was referring to. Sometimes Mingyur was able to maintain awareness, and sometimes he lost awareness. Maintaining awareness means awareness-the-circle outside of the square-conditioning. Losing awareness means awareness/circle is inside the square-conditioning. Losing awareness means awareness is captured/held in conditioning. Awareness essentially disappears in a very functional sense (awareness in a very real functional sense becomes the conditioning). This is very simple. One is either aware, or not-aware. This troubles me because you seem not to know the difference, and you have explicitly stated previously that it doesn't matter if one is aware or not-aware. Anyone who really understands this I would think much prefers to live through awareness and not through conditioning, through the circle outside the square versus the circle inside the square. Now, the further quote. Mingyur gives the example of the 16th Karmapa who lives through his awareness, (almost) all the time, throughout the day, and night. But his awareness was not perfect because just as he was going to sleep, he lost his awareness, but it came back once he was asleep. The monk-scholar who he had gone to for advice, was astonished at his ability to stay in awareness throughout the day. He told the Karmapa, I can't teach you anything. (Anybody who understands this whole process knows that what the Karmapa could do is not easy). Now, you always say, there is no square, there is no circle, there is only What Is, All One. But there is a difference in the way one functions in life, which I've tried to show here (again). You may not understand or appreciate what I'm pointing to. Conventionally speaking, anyone who is not asleep is aware of "what is." "What is" includes thoughts, feelings, and direct sensory perception. S/he may be aware of what is sensed via sight, sound, smell, etc. or be aware of thoughts about "what is" or feelings, but the awareness is always present and it's non-dual. The non-duality of awareness usually isn't realized or recognized by most people, but it can become obvious to anyone who's capable of looking at the world in total mental silence for a sustained period of time and has discovered the difference between the world as it is and the world as it is generally conceived. You correctly state that most people live in a kind of dream state created and maintained by reflective thoughts, but even those people if not asleep are aware. People who have meditated for a fair amount of time discover that awareness throughout the day shifts back and forth between thoughts/feelings and direct sense perceptions. As the intellect becomes increasingly quiescent, and one "gets out of one's head" and begins to spend more time directly interacting with the world, many of the ideas that once were dominant about what's going on often collapse, and greater and greater clarity ensues. Awareness is actually 24/7, but most people are not aware of awareness when in deep sleep. As I noted, a few people have claimed to have experienced wide-awake awareness even when in deep sleep, but these examples are rare. My main point is that after SR, it no longer matters whether awareness focuses upon thoughts or feelings or "the exterior world" because inside and outside have ceased to be separate, and the entity that was once imagined to be oneself has vanished. There is only Self, or God, or whateverwewanttocallit, and THAT simply unfolds however it unfolds. The SVP is a figment of imagination. A very simple question: What is meditation? Is everybody meditating 24/7? (The quotes were about meditation). I am not SR. I don't ever want the state you refer to as SR (meaning I understand what you are saying). I will give you an analogy. The human mind-brain-body is formed from the table of elements, the Periodic Table. That's what you are, a specific combination of the elements, that's what you are reduced to, you are that. Now take the elements to be All This/What Is/One. (From a material/physical standpoint, it is). The mind-brain-body are the elements. By way of analogy the elements = All This/What Is. So, the mind-brain-body is All This/What Is/One. SO WHAT? SO WHAT?SO WHAT? You don't live as if there is no zd. In the span of 50-70-90-110 years almost all mind-brains-bodies live from the standpoint of being a person. The Dalai Lama himself lives from the standpoint of being a person. I see no difference between what you mean by SR and the analogy of the mind-brain-body (no matter what else we are or might be) being formed from the elements. I have said a hundred times, I do not know what it would mean to be a SVP.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 17, 2019 14:33:20 GMT -5
You may not understand or appreciate what I'm pointing to. Conventionally speaking, anyone who is not asleep is aware of "what is." "What is" includes thoughts, feelings, and direct sensory perception. S/he may be aware of what is sensed via sight, sound, smell, etc. or be aware of thoughts about "what is" or feelings, but the awareness is always present and it's non-dual. The non-duality of awareness usually isn't realized or recognized by most people, but it can become obvious to anyone who's capable of looking at the world in total mental silence for a sustained period of time and has discovered the difference between the world as it is and the world as it is generally conceived. You correctly state that most people live in a kind of dream state created and maintained by reflective thoughts, but even those people if not asleep are aware. People who have meditated for a fair amount of time discover that awareness throughout the day shifts back and forth between thoughts/feelings and direct sense perceptions. As the intellect becomes increasingly quiescent, and one "gets out of one's head" and begins to spend more time directly interacting with the world, many of the ideas that once were dominant about what's going on often collapse, and greater and greater clarity ensues. Awareness is actually 24/7, but most people are not aware of awareness when in deep sleep. As I noted, a few people have claimed to have experienced wide-awake awareness even when in deep sleep, but these examples are rare. My main point is that after SR, it no longer matters whether awareness focuses upon thoughts or feelings or "the exterior world" because inside and outside have ceased to be separate, and the entity that was once imagined to be oneself has vanished. There is only Self, or God, or whateverwewanttocallit, and THAT simply unfolds however it unfolds. The SVP is a figment of imagination. A very simple question: What is meditation? Is everybody meditating 24/7? (The quotes were about meditation). I am not SR. I don't ever want the state you refer to as SR (meaning I understand what you are saying). I will give you an analogy. The human mind-brain-body is formed from the table of elements, the Periodic Table. That's what you are, a specific combination of the elements, that's what you are reduced to, you are that. Now take the elements to be All This/What Is/One. (From a material/physical standpoint, it is). The mind-brain-body are the elements. By way of analogy the elements = All This/What Is. So, the mind-brain-body is All This/What Is/One. SO WHAT? SO WHAT?SO WHAT? You don't live as if there is no zd. In the span of 50-70-90-110 years almost all mind-brains-bodies live from the standpoint of being a person. The Dalai Lama himself lives from the standpoint of being a person. I see no difference between what you mean by SR and the analogy of the mind-brain-body (no matter what else we are or might be) being formed from the elements. I have said a hundred times, I do not know what it would mean to be a SVP. I'm sorry if I lost the track of this thread, and went in a different direction, but I can answer the questions you posed. 1. What is meditation? It depends upon how one defines the word. Generally speaking, meditation is a concentrated focus of attention, usually upon something specific, such as the breath, the sense of existence, a sound, a sight, a feeling, an existential question, or simply nothingness. 2. Is everyone meditating 24/7? Of course not. 3. Saying that you don't want SR does not mean that you understand what I'm pointing to. 4. If all is one, so what? Well, that depends upon whether the knowing of oneness is conceptual or non-conceptual. If it's non-conceptual, it can bring an end to the spiritual search, and that can be life changing. For some people that's a big deal. Someone at a retreat once asked, "What do you get if you find all the answers to the questions that bother you?" The answer is, "No more seeking." .
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2019 14:48:47 GMT -5
You may not understand or appreciate what I'm pointing to. Conventionally speaking, anyone who is not asleep is aware of "what is." "What is" includes thoughts, feelings, and direct sensory perception. S/he may be aware of what is sensed via sight, sound, smell, etc. or be aware of thoughts about "what is" or feelings, but the awareness is always present and it's non-dual. The non-duality of awareness usually isn't realized or recognized by most people, but it can become obvious to anyone who's capable of looking at the world in total mental silence for a sustained period of time and has discovered the difference between the world as it is and the world as it is generally conceived. You correctly state that most people live in a kind of dream state created and maintained by reflective thoughts, but even those people if not asleep are aware. People who have meditated for a fair amount of time discover that awareness throughout the day shifts back and forth between thoughts/feelings and direct sense perceptions. As the intellect becomes increasingly quiescent, and one "gets out of one's head" and begins to spend more time directly interacting with the world, many of the ideas that once were dominant about what's going on often collapse, and greater and greater clarity ensues. Awareness is actually 24/7, but most people are not aware of awareness when in deep sleep. As I noted, a few people have claimed to have experienced wide-awake awareness even when in deep sleep, but these examples are rare. My main point is that after SR, it no longer matters whether awareness focuses upon thoughts or feelings or "the exterior world" because inside and outside have ceased to be separate, and the entity that was once imagined to be oneself has vanished. There is only Self, or God, or whateverwewanttocallit, and THAT simply unfolds however it unfolds. The SVP is a figment of imagination. A very simple question: What is meditation? Is everybody meditating 24/7? (The quotes were about meditation). I am not SR. I don't ever want the state you refer to as SR (meaning I understand what you are saying). I will give you an analogy. The human mind-brain-body is formed from the table of elements, the Periodic Table. That's what you are, a specific combination of the elements, that's what you are reduced to, you are that. Now take the elements to be All This/What Is/One. (From a material/physical standpoint, it is). The mind-brain-body are the elements. By way of analogy the elements = All This/What Is. So, the mind-brain-body is All This/What Is/One. SO WHAT? SO WHAT?SO WHAT? You don't live as if there is no zd. In the span of 50-70-90-110 years almost all mind-brains-bodies live from the standpoint of being a person. The Dalai Lama himself lives from the standpoint of being a person. I see no difference between what you mean by SR and the analogy of the mind-brain-body (no matter what else we are or might be) being formed from the elements. I have said a hundred times, I do not know what it would mean to be a SVP. Where is your proof that that is how he's functioning internally?
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 18, 2019 11:43:12 GMT -5
A very simple question: What is meditation? Is everybody meditating 24/7? (The quotes were about meditation). I am not SR. I don't ever want the state you refer to as SR (meaning I understand what you are saying). I will give you an analogy. The human mind-brain-body is formed from the table of elements, the Periodic Table. That's what you are, a specific combination of the elements, that's what you are reduced to, you are that. Now take the elements to be All This/What Is/One. (From a material/physical standpoint, it is). The mind-brain-body are the elements. By way of analogy the elements = All This/What Is. So, the mind-brain-body is All This/What Is/One. SO WHAT? SO WHAT?SO WHAT? You don't live as if there is no zd. In the span of 50-70-90-110 years almost all mind-brains-bodies live from the standpoint of being a person. The Dalai Lama himself lives from the standpoint of being a person. I see no difference between what you mean by SR and the analogy of the mind-brain-body (no matter what else we are or might be) being formed from the elements. I have said a hundred times, I do not know what it would mean to be a SVP. Where is your proof that that is how he's functioning internally? I've read him saying so in his books.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2019 13:53:38 GMT -5
Where is your proof that that is how he's functioning internally? I've read him saying so in his books. Is it possible to find his exact words please? I respect your translation though I am interested to read his expression.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 18, 2019 14:49:40 GMT -5
I've read him saying so in his books. Is it possible to find his exact words please? I respect your translation though I am interested to read his expression. Sure...I can probably dig it up (say by maybe 8PM ET USA). ...He seems very practical in the matter... He basically acknowledges he is a person in time and space acting in the world. That is, emptiness, dependent origination (there are no *things*, everything is a combination of other things, nothing has inherent existence), doesn't mean there isn't a *~person~*, anatta, no-self simply means the self is a temporary collective. And in the case of The Dalai Lama, and other Buddhists (and others), that temporary collective extends from life to life in more than one incarnation. But the exact nature of that temporary collective is.... (I'm not at home...quotes to follow...)...
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 18, 2019 15:08:40 GMT -5
A very simple question: What is meditation? Is everybody meditating 24/7? (The quotes were about meditation). I am not SR. I don't ever want the state you refer to as SR (meaning I understand what you are saying). I will give you an analogy. The human mind-brain-body is formed from the table of elements, the Periodic Table. That's what you are, a specific combination of the elements, that's what you are reduced to, you are that. Now take the elements to be All This/What Is/One. (From a material/physical standpoint, it is). The mind-brain-body are the elements. By way of analogy the elements = All This/What Is. So, the mind-brain-body is All This/What Is/One. SO WHAT? SO WHAT?SO WHAT? You don't live as if there is no zd. In the span of 50-70-90-110 years almost all mind-brains-bodies live from the standpoint of being a person. The Dalai Lama himself lives from the standpoint of being a person. I see no difference between what you mean by SR and the analogy of the mind-brain-body (no matter what else we are or might be) being formed from the elements. I have said a hundred times, I do not know what it would mean to be a SVP. I'm sorry if I lost the track of this thread, and went in a different direction, but I can answer the questions you posed. 1. What is meditation? It depends upon how one defines the word. Generally speaking, meditation is a concentrated focus of attention, usually upon something specific, such as the breath, the sense of existence, a sound, a sight, a feeling, an existential question, or simply nothingness. 2. Is everyone meditating 24/7? Of course not. 3. Saying that you don't want SR does not mean that you understand what I'm pointing to. 4. If all is one, so what? Well, that depends upon whether the knowing of oneness is conceptual or non-conceptual. If it's non-conceptual, it can bring an end to the spiritual search, and that can be life changing. For some people that's a big deal. Someone at a retreat once asked, "What do you get if you find all the answers to the questions that bother you?" The answer is, "No more seeking." . The point I was trying to make is that in your earlier post you made no provision for any kind of awareness other than ordinary awareness. The quotes were concerning awareness in relation to meditation (not, for example, maintaining awareness so you don't cross the center line while driving). And further, what is the value of meditation versus, for example, not crossing the center line. So now you have made/acknowledged such a distinction. .....But I guess I will not proceed as I know what your answer will be... (For zd there is no distinction, that's why you answered earlier as you did...)...(That actually boggles my mind...)...
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