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Post by amit on Jul 31, 2020 13:40:52 GMT -5
The Buddhist teaching of no doer is very clear and yet traditional Advaita asserts that there is someone who can become enlightened, hence practise. Alternatively Neo Advaita mirrors the Buddhist teaching of no doer and asserts that there is no such thing as personal enlightenment.
It is not surprising that no doer is less popular bearing in mind the liking for the idea of personal empowerment, which supports the idea of mind insisting on and arranging that empowerment
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Jul 31, 2020 14:55:31 GMT -5
The Buddhist teaching of no doer is very clear and yet traditional Advaita asserts that there is someone who can become enlightened, hence practise. Alternatively Neo Advaita mirrors the Buddhist teaching of no doer and asserts that there is no such thing as personal enlightenment. It is not surprising that no doer is less popular bearing in mind the liking for the idea of personal empowerment, which supports the idea of mind insisting on and arranging that empowerment This whole way of putting it is very misleading, since whether there is a doer or not and what it would mean for there not to be a doer cannot be understood simply by thinking about it. The truth is that for almost everyone, in order for the truth to be grasped, the mind has to be substantially purified. That requires practice. The end of the practice will be the realization that there was never any practice and never any realization. But it's not the same kind of "never" that the un-realized mind imagines that "never" to be. This is what happens when the mind tries to understand too deeply into these matters simply using logic. |
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Post by mamza on Jul 31, 2020 19:53:47 GMT -5
I've never delved too deeply into what different religions/teachings/whatevers do, but I always attributed the idea of teaching the idea of becoming enlightened as a way of 'tricking' people into self inquiry. A person who has never attempted self realization, as you said, would obviously be much more interested in enlightenment than the idea that they don't exist (on average), so you hook the mind and reel 'em in.
I always imagined the reason the opposite teaching of "no doer" as what some people consider to be "more honest." Rather than tricking people into self inquiry, they focus rather on the people already on the path.
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Post by amit on Aug 1, 2020 5:56:23 GMT -5
The Buddhist teaching of no doer is very clear and yet traditional Advaita asserts that there is someone who can become enlightened, hence practise. Alternatively Neo Advaita mirrors the Buddhist teaching of no doer and asserts that there is no such thing as personal enlightenment. It is not surprising that no doer is less popular bearing in mind the liking for the idea of personal empowerment, which supports the idea of mind insisting on and arranging that empowerment This whole way of putting it is very misleading, since whether there is a doer or not and what it would mean for there not to be a doer cannot be understood simply by thinking about it. The truth is that for almost everyone, in order for the truth to be grasped, the mind has to be substantially purified. That requires practice. The end of the practice will be the realization that there was never any practice and never any realization. But it's not the same kind of "never" that the un-realized mind imagines that "never" to be. understood by This is what happens when the mind tries to understand too deeply into these matters simply using logic. The concept 'No Doer' is clear so is understood by the mind. Even so there is a tendancy in some circles to denegrate the mind for dogmatic, and potentially damaging reasons. |
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Post by amit on Aug 1, 2020 6:00:47 GMT -5
The Buddhist teaching of no doer is very clear and yet traditional Advaita asserts that there is someone who can become enlightened, hence practise. Alternatively Neo Advaita mirrors the Buddhist teaching of no doer and asserts that there is no such thing as personal enlightenment. It is not surprising that no doer is less popular bearing in mind the liking for the idea of personal empowerment, which supports the idea of mind insisting on and arranging that empowerment This whole way of putting it is very misleading, since whether there is a doer or not and what it would mean for there not to be a doer cannot be understood simply by thinking about it. The truth is that for almost everyone, in order for the truth to be grasped, the mind has to be substantially purified. That requires practice. The end of the practice will be the realization that there was never any practice and never any realization.ad. But it's not the same kind of "never" that the un-realized mind imagines that "never" to be. This is what happens when the mind tries to understand too deeply into these matters simply using logic. There may always be something hidden to contradict what is believed to be the truth, so for some pursuit of the truth needs to be trancended to remove a barrier in the spiritual search and go with the vibration of resonance instead. |
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Xiao
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Post by Xiao on Aug 11, 2020 5:26:33 GMT -5
This whole way of putting it is very misleading, since whether there is a doer or not and what it would mean for there not to be a doer cannot be understood simply by thinking about it. The truth is that for almost everyone, in order for the truth to be grasped, the mind has to be substantially purified. That requires practice. The end of the practice will be the realization that there was never any practice and never any realization.ad. But it's not the same kind of "never" that the un-realized mind imagines that "never" to be. This is what happens when the mind tries to understand too deeply into these matters simply using logic. Well said! Honestly if we just stuck with the basic ZD model of ATA-t we could go a long way in terms of avoiding the intellectual pitfall. Joan Tollifson is another writer who I think highlights the doer/no-doer point well. two quotes from her I enjoy: "Opening and closing your hand is not confusing until you begin to think about whether it is an action that happens through free will or whether it was predestined to happen or what purpose it has. Then you get tangled up in the imaginary problem, the imaginary dilemma that thought has just created. But opening and closing your hand is simple and not confusing. It happens quite effortlessly." "I discovered firsthand that there IS something that can be done, or that can happen—and neither the active nor the passive voice really captures how it arises or how it moves. It is an effortless effort that has been variously described as surrendering, stopping, resting in the natural state, being fully present in the Now, doing nothing, or allowing everything to be as it is. It is the absence of our usual goal-directed, intentional, willful activity. It is a letting go, an absence of grasping. This non-action or effortless effort cannot be brought about on command, and there are times when it does not seem to be available, or at least, it doesn’t happen. But in some sense, it is always a possibility because it is nothing more (or less) than waking up to what is always already fully here. Thus, I would say that “I can choose” and “I have no choice” are both partially true and equally false. One formulation gives us a power we obviously do not actually have, while the other denies the ability that can only be found right here, right now to act. No words can capture the actuality of how life moves." |
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Post by zendancer on Aug 11, 2020 7:13:31 GMT -5
This whole way of putting it is very misleading, since whether there is a doer or not and what it would mean for there not to be a doer cannot be understood simply by thinking about it. The truth is that for almost everyone, in order for the truth to be grasped, the mind has to be substantially purified. That requires practice. The end of the practice will be the realization that there was never any practice and never any realization.ad. But it's not the same kind of "never" that the un-realized mind imagines that "never" to be. This is what happens when the mind tries to understand too deeply into these matters simply using logic. Well said! Honestly if we just stuck with the basic ZD model of ATA-t we could go a long way in terms of avoiding the intellectual pitfall. Joan Tollifson is another writer who I think highlights the doer/no-doer point well. two quotes from her I enjoy: "Opening and closing your hand is not confusing until you begin to think about whether it is an action that happens through free will or whether it was predestined to happen or what purpose it has. Then you get tangled up in the imaginary problem, the imaginary dilemma that thought has just created. But opening and closing your hand is simple and not confusing. It happens quite effortlessly." "I discovered firsthand that there IS something that can be done, or that can happen—and neither the active nor the passive voice really captures how it arises or how it moves. It is an effortless effort that has been variously described as surrendering, stopping, resting in the natural state, being fully present in the Now, doing nothing, or allowing everything to be as it is. It is the absence of our usual goal-directed, intentional, willful activity. It is a letting go, an absence of grasping. This non-action or effortless effort cannot be brought about on command, and there are times when it does not seem to be available, or at least, it doesn’t happen. But in some sense, it is always a possibility because it is nothing more (or less) than waking up to what is always already fully here. Thus, I would say that “I can choose” and “I have no choice” are both partially true and equally false. One formulation gives us a power we obviously do not actually have, while the other denies the ability that can only be found right here, right now to act. No words can capture the actuality of how life moves." Exactly! |
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Xiao
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Post by Xiao on Aug 15, 2020 7:37:50 GMT -5
It really strikes me how even after learning all of this (non-doership, the primacy of direct experience over thought, ATA, etc.) the mind will still jump in from time to time and I (meaning the idea of "me") totally get dragged all over the place by endless narration and discursive thought. In some lucky moments it's seen to be happening and it all falls away and was seen to be nothing other than mental gymnastics of the more unpleasant variety, and back to ATA it is.
It's comforting to see ATA slowly become more and more the preference, but it's clearly a process that unfolds in time, at least from the point of view of the bodymind. Merely having the intention to attend actuality is sufficient and in a way there's no possiblity of putting the genie completely back in the bottle. The fan has been unplugged, so to speak, but it may (or may not, who knows!) be a while before the blades completely stop spinning.
(I vote we start using Ramana's Fan as official terminology, like Occam's Razor 😂)
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Post by zendancer on Aug 15, 2020 8:15:44 GMT -5
It really strikes me how even after learning all of this (non-doership, the primacy of direct experience over thought, ATA, etc.) the mind will still jump in from time to time and I (meaning the idea of "me") totally get dragged all over the place by endless narration and discursive thought. In some lucky moments it's seen to be happening and it all falls away and was seen to be nothing other than mental gymnastics of the more unpleasant variety, and back to ATA it is. It's comforting to see ATA slowly become more and more the preference, but it's clearly a process that unfolds in time, at least from the point of view of the bodymind. Merely having the intention to attend actuality is sufficient and in a way there's no possiblity of putting the genie completely back in the bottle. The fan has been unplugged, so to speak, but it may (or may not, who knows!) be a while before the blades completely stop spinning. (I vote we start using Ramana's Fan as official terminology, like Occam's Razor 😂) Yes, this morning I was listening to a Christian contemplative (a Catholic monastic) discussing non-duality on youtube, and he is 95% clear, but at one point, after explaining how silent contemplation rewires the brain in the direction of unitive consciousness, he said, "But I'm not there yet. I've been practicing for 30 years, and there are times when I feel in union with God and the world, but it's not yet a permanent state." In short, he lacks two significant realizations--(1) that he isn't who he thinks he is and (2) what he actually IS. It helps to remember that the word "is" is a verb and not a noun. Here's a great quote from Nisargadatta: "It is the nature of the mind to roam about. All you can do is shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind......The mind will rebel in the beginning but with patience and perseverance, it will yield and keep quiet. Once you are quiet, things will begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally, without any interference on your part." FWIW, I don't think it matters whether one shifts attention away from thoughts to "staying in the I am" like Nisargadatta, or shifting attention away from thoughts to direct sensory perception (ATA-T), or shifting attention away from thoughts to awareness of awareness, or shifting attention away from thoughts to whatever the body is doing, or any other similar focuses beyond the intellect. The key activity is regularly shifting attention away from the internal verbal chattering of the mind. Although it wasn't this character's path, I suspect that one could focus exclusively upon universal sound (the background sound that is always present), and that activity would eventually take one all the way home. |
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Xiao
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Post by Xiao on Aug 23, 2020 4:47:38 GMT -5
Agreed. To quote you from a while back, "The easiest way to get out of the mess is to reverse the process that created the mess in the first place." Any "technique" or reminder that points back to the knowing presence (as opposed to further legitimizing the conceptualizing habit) is going to do the job.
To delve into this a bit further ZD, do you see any difference between teachings that point out the cognizance or presence of awareness as opposed to those which focus more on being/presence? I find that the awareness oriented teachings tend to avoid the pitfall that the Christian contemplative (who I assume is Richard Rohr) seemingly fell into, because it's so personal and close it's difficult to not see that as YOU. Still, if one gives legitimacy to the "small self" while also acknowledging the presence of awareness (yet not seeing it as one's self) I think you get the basic formula of "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." It suggests that awareness has been realized yet seen as a separate entity in a way.
Anyway, essentially it's a question of whether there's any real difference between focusing on appearances (often described as "self luminous" in some traditions to sort of marry this awareness/appearances dichotomy) and focusing on the knower of appearances.
I think it would be unfair to try simplify it and say that Buddhist schools often focused on appearances while Vedantic/Samkhya "Hindu" thought focused on awareness, but I wouldn't be the first person to suggest such a thing. Clearly both traditions and all the sub-categories within each are far too distinct to paint with such broad strokes. I'm more interested if you think there's any merit to one over the other. I personally think it's mostly a philosophical/semantic distinction at the end of the day, and self-abidance (which I consider to be pretty synonymous with ATA in general) is still the way out of this mess that is thinking.
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Post by zendancer on Aug 23, 2020 7:31:10 GMT -5
Agreed. To quote you from a while back, "The easiest way to get out of the mess is to reverse the process that created the mess in the first place." Any "technique" or reminder that points back to the knowing presence (as opposed to further legitimizing the conceptualizing habit) is going to do the job. To delve into this a bit further ZD, do you see any difference between teachings that point out the cognizance or presence of awareness as opposed to those which focus more on being/presence? I find that the awareness oriented teachings tend to avoid the pitfall that the Christian contemplative (who I assume is Richard Rohr) seemingly fell into, because it's so personal and close it's difficult to not see that as YOU. Still, if one gives legitimacy to the "small self" while also acknowledging the presence of awareness (yet not seeing it as one's self) I think you get the basic formula of "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." It suggests that awareness has been realized yet seen as a separate entity in a way. Anyway, essentially it's a question of whether there's any real difference between focusing on appearances (often described as "self luminous" in some traditions to sort of marry this awareness/appearances dichotomy) and focusing on the knower of appearances. I think it would be unfair to try simplify it and say that Buddhist schools often focused on appearances while Vedantic/Samkhya "Hindu" thought focused on awareness, but I wouldn't be the first person to suggest such a thing. Clearly both traditions and all the sub-categories within each are far too distinct to paint with such broad strokes. I'm more interested if you think there's any merit to one over the other. I personally think it's mostly a philosophical/semantic distinction at the end of the day, and self-abidance (which I consider to be pretty synonymous with ATA in general) is still the way out of this mess that is thinking. Good question. From my POV it doesn't seem to make much difference. People in both traditions apparently discover something that permanently results in a state that they consider satisfactory. Generally speaking, what seekers are seeking is peace of mind, and that usually means becoming free of the mind via realizations that result in non-conceptual understanding. How that occurs seems less important than the end result. Although the depth of realizations can vary a great deal, if seeking comes to an end, and people find peace, equanimity, freedom, and happiness, all that can be said is, "Hallelujah!" As Sifting pointed out, the path involves a change in mental habits, and how that plays out varies a great deal because every human is unique. We often talk about "the natural state," but it's hard to put into words what this phrase points to. In the Zen tradition "becoming an ordinary person" is equivalent to living life free from the dominance of mind and the habit of reflective thought. Zen people call this "non-abidance in mind," and it's a way of life that's equivalent to what some people call "flow." One does whatever is necessary in the present moment, and then does whatever comes next without second-guessing, expectation, recrimination, regret, or thinking that anything should be different than it is. In short, life is lived without intellectual reflection. Yes, I was referring to Richard Rohr. His understanding of what happened in the history of Christianity seems spot on, but he apparently hasn't yet found the sense of oneness that he intuits is possible. Like many people, he has had experiences of oneness, or radical presence, or union with God, but I suspect that he imagines that permanence would involve a permanent kind of similar oneness experience. This is a misunderstanding, but it's a common one among Christian mystics. When he says, "I'm not there yet," he is incorrect. He is always "there," but he hasn't yet realized it, and therefore doesn't yet know it non-conceptually. Zen people would say, "One more step is necessary." Father Rohr apparently still thinks that he's Father Rohr who needs to attain a state of permanent oneness. This is oneness thinking, "I need to become oneness."  |
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Xiao
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Post by Xiao on Aug 29, 2020 8:36:53 GMT -5
Well said! It's always only one step in a sense; that simple movement from thoughts about what is, to what is. Zen people would say, "One more step is necessary." |
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