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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2021 20:28:28 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Twenty-Three24. THE BODY DOES NOT SAY 'I'. NO ONE WILL ARGUE THAT EVEN IN DEEP SLEEP THE 'I' CEASES TO EXIST. ONCE THE 'I' EMERGES, ALL ELSE EMERGES. WITH A KEEN MIND ENQUIRE WHENCE THIS 'I' EMERGES. Commentary: The body, being insentient, cannot call itself the I any more than the words on a page can speak themselves. And the Self, being beyond thought, does not change or act, and cannot and does not call itself by any name. The light of the Self, then, is said to reflect upon the body (or the body-mind), and in the reflection of that body in the light of the Self — is said to be the ego which arises. This is much like the imaginary character that is created when a reader (analogous to the Self) reads a book (analogous to the body). In the interaction between reader and book arises an imaginary person who is called the character. This character does not actually do, feel, or think anything, but is only imagined to do so. This is called the knot that ties consciousness and matter, or the ego. This imaginary character is the one who seems to seek spiritual truth, and at the end of its quest, will be dissolved away by the the knowledge of its own imaginary nature against the background of Self. At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. Partner mis-placing the J comes to me hoping that I may assist her finding the number. Hearing this, nil response was detectable no-thing was uttered but later, mind absent, body walks into kitchen and sidles up to the microwave and there in front of me, notice the J sitting there on top of the appliance. Knowing I was onto something, my partner followed me for reasons only she knows and we got to slay the J, in no time at all…as without Mind, there is no-time. The body has its own-words and can speak with anyone that be essence orientated. |
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Oct 18, 2021 6:44:03 GMT -5
Partner mis-placing the J comes to me hoping that I may assist her finding the number.  What is the J? |
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Post by zazeniac on Oct 18, 2021 11:15:22 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Twenty-Three24. THE BODY DOES NOT SAY 'I'. NO ONE WILL ARGUE THAT EVEN IN DEEP SLEEP THE 'I' CEASES TO EXIST. ONCE THE 'I' EMERGES, ALL ELSE EMERGES. WITH A KEEN MIND ENQUIRE WHENCE THIS 'I' EMERGES. Commentary: The body, being insentient, cannot call itself the I any more than the words on a page can speak themselves. And the Self, being beyond thought, does not change or act, and cannot and does not call itself by any name. The light of the Self, then, is said to reflect upon the body (or the body-mind), and in the reflection of that body in the light of the Self — is said to be the ego which arises. This is much like the imaginary character that is created when a reader (analogous to the Self) reads a book (analogous to the body). In the interaction between reader and book arises an imaginary person who is called the character. This character does not actually do, feel, or think anything, but is only imagined to do so. This is called the knot that ties consciousness and matter, or the ego. This imaginary character is the one who seems to seek spiritual truth, and at the end of its quest, will be dissolved away by the the knowledge of its own imaginary nature against the background of Self. At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. So exactly how does one "with a keen mind enquire whence this 'I' emerges?" |
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Post by zazeniac on Oct 18, 2021 11:28:36 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Twenty-Three24. THE BODY DOES NOT SAY 'I'. NO ONE WILL ARGUE THAT EVEN IN DEEP SLEEP THE 'I' CEASES TO EXIST. ONCE THE 'I' EMERGES, ALL ELSE EMERGES. WITH A KEEN MIND ENQUIRE WHENCE THIS 'I' EMERGES. Commentary: The body, being insentient, cannot call itself the I any more than the words on a page can speak themselves. And the Self, being beyond thought, does not change or act, and cannot and does not call itself by any name. The light of the Self, then, is said to reflect upon the body (or the body-mind), and in the reflection of that body in the light of the Self — is said to be the ego which arises. This is much like the imaginary character that is created when a reader (analogous to the Self) reads a book (analogous to the body). In the interaction between reader and book arises an imaginary person who is called the character. This character does not actually do, feel, or think anything, but is only imagined to do so. This is called the knot that ties consciousness and matter, or the ego. This imaginary character is the one who seems to seek spiritual truth, and at the end of its quest, will be dissolved away by the the knowledge of its own imaginary nature against the background of Self. At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. So exactly how does one "with a keen mind enquire whence this 'I' emerges?" It's funny but I always related the sense of "I" with the breath, probably the zazen training, but when I stop my breath and repeat "I" in my head, a different sense is offered up. If I ask where that comes from, the mind goes blank. Frustration ensues.. Interested in your take on this. |
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Oct 18, 2021 12:34:49 GMT -5
So exactly how does one "with a keen mind enquire whence this 'I' emerges?" It's funny but I always related the sense of "I" with the breath, probably the zazen training, but when I stop my breath and repeat "I" in my head, a different sense is offered up. If I ask where that comes from, the mind goes blank. Frustration ensues.. Interested in your take on this. The "I" you're looking for is yourself. You know that you are -- you're here, right now, awake, alive, perceiving. This is the most elementary, indisputable information in your experience. The question is -- how do you know that? Where is that information coming from? It's in your experience somewhere. Find it in your experience -- well, hunt it. An example I sometimes give is if it felt like you had a third arm. You can feel it get cold or hot. You can feel it itch. Your task is to find out where that sensation is coming from. Or if someone told you to drink some wine, and that, among some big bold flavors of oak and mineral, there was a very, very, very faint scent of strawberries. Can you try to detect that scent? In each case, the information is in your experience somehow. Try to locate it. If the mind goes blank, notice that it is to you that the mind appears a blank. Try to locate -- where you are. You will keep coming up with things that you are not. That's fine. Refocus. Refocus and refocus and refocus and refocus.
The key is the continuity of the inquiry at all waking moments. What disrupts the continuity are the attachments to doership and experience. When you are able to prioritize the inquiry over enough other things, the gates will open. The attachments need to be sufficiently weakened for you to let go and allow yourself to see. Also, these videos of mine might be helpful: |
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Post by zazeniac on Oct 18, 2021 21:19:09 GMT -5
It's funny but I always related the sense of "I" with the breath, probably the zazen training, but when I stop my breath and repeat "I" in my head, a different sense is offered up. If I ask where that comes from, the mind goes blank. Frustration ensues.. Interested in your take on this. The "I" you're looking for is yourself. You know that you are -- you're here, right now, awake, alive, perceiving. This is the most elementary, indisputable information in your experience. The question is -- how do you know that? Where is that information coming from? It's in your experience somewhere. Find it in your experience -- well, hunt it. An example I sometimes give is if it felt like you had a third arm. You can feel it get cold or hot. You can feel it itch. Your task is to find out where that sensation is coming from. Or if someone told you to drink some wine, and that, among some big bold flavors of oak and mineral, there was a very, very, very faint scent of strawberries. Can you try to detect that scent? In each case, the information is in your experience somehow. Try to locate it. If the mind goes blank, notice that it is to you that the mind appears a blank. Try to locate -- where you are. You will keep coming up with things that you are not. That's fine. Refocus. Refocus and refocus and refocus and refocus.
The key is the continuity of the inquiry at all waking moments. What disrupts the continuity are the attachments to doership and experience. When you are able to prioritize the inquiry over enough other things, the gates will open. The attachments need to be sufficiently weakened for you to let go and allow yourself to see. Also, these videos of mine might be helpful: Thanks. I'll check out the videos. |
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Post by zazeniac on Oct 18, 2021 21:24:52 GMT -5
It's funny but I always related the sense of "I" with the breath, probably the zazen training, but when I stop my breath and repeat "I" in my head, a different sense is offered up. If I ask where that comes from, the mind goes blank. Frustration ensues.. Interested in your take on this. Fascinating. How long does breath-holding ‘continue’ as you explore your Mind? Just a few seconds. But I do wim hof breathing technique. Breath holding is a staple. |
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Post by zazeniac on Oct 19, 2021 12:02:34 GMT -5
Just a few seconds. But I do wim hof breathing technique. Breath holding is a staple. Have you connected with the natural breath? Sure when I'm not in my head, too infrequently. |
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Post by zazeniac on Oct 20, 2021 8:31:21 GMT -5
Sure when I'm not in my head, too infrequently. Do you forget to breath when the Natural Breath ceases and Can you dance-effortlessly without breathing heaps of air?
Sure when the attention goes to the invented reality posited by my big head, I forget. Though not really, that breath happens naturally when not distracted by delusion, specially during zazen, so not sure it's forgetting. It's more like the head believing there's something more important, erroneously. I used to suffer from asthma. I'd calm it down with relaxation visualizations. Sometimes I'd visualize doing the tai chi forms. Strange how moving the mind to a different set of circumstances affects the body. No dancing lately. Been rehabbing a knee. But last night I played tennis. Really worked that knee without pain for the first time in a couple of months. Maybe dancing is next. |
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Post by steven on Oct 22, 2021 1:34:26 GMT -5
Sure when the attention goes to the invented reality posited by my big head, I forget. Though not really, that breath happens naturally when not distracted by delusion, specially during zazen, so not sure it's forgetting. It's more like the head believing there's something more important, erroneously. I used to suffer from asthma. I'd calm it down with relaxation visualizations. Sometimes I'd visualize doing the tai chi forms. Strange how moving the mind to a different set of circumstances affects the body. No dancing lately. Been rehabbing a knee. But last night I played tennis. Really worked that knee without pain for the first time in a couple of months. Maybe dancing is next. Wonderful you are finding ways to adjust to your medical condition. Wifie gets A also. Another question, ‘When A is detected arising within, have you investigated breathing smaller, being tiny and appreciating no breath possibilities? When younger I was involved with the Rebirthing fraternity ( Connected Breathing to some) where I realised, sometimes babies stop breathing for ages freaking their parents out. After an emotional-release and delving deeply inside, Adults also can notice the natural breath ceasing. At rest, one can attune ethers and Not Have to Breathe at all for periods of time which seem to differ on account of where one is at, with comfortable ness. All throughout my childhood abs into adulthood it was a meme in my family that I would just stop breathing for long periods of time. They’d make jokes about it, or try to snap me out of it: “Steven, you stopped breathing again!” Abs give me a little shove lol I’d get so deep into thought that the thoughts would just stop and I’d just sit there without breathing, staring at something, perfectly still for what they told me was minutes at a time, though for me it was like time stopped, so I’d have no idea how much time had passed. It’s a very peaceful way to be, out of time Also, you’re a magical creature Wally ;-) |
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Post by zazeniac on Oct 24, 2021 7:55:33 GMT -5
The ordinary is magical. We're just always looking beyond it. I remember after a week in the mountains taking a hot shower. We seek that contrast. Always after the better experience, never satisfied. Birds of appetite.
What sitting undoes. Why it's always the same, always arduous. No matter how hard the mind tries to make it otherwise. Until the grasping dies out like a fire bereft of fuel.
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Post by laughter on Oct 25, 2021 16:05:56 GMT -5
The ordinary is magical. We're just always looking beyond it. I remember after a week in the mountains taking a hot shower. We seek that contrast. Always after the better experience, never satisfied. Birds of appetite. What sitting undoes. Why it's always the same, always arduous. No matter how hard the mind tries to make it otherwise. Until the grasping dies out like a fire bereft of fuel. Chasing natural highs was, for me, rather revealing about the nature of desire, and satisfaction. |
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Oct 27, 2021 23:58:46 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Twenty-Four25. IT COMES INTO BEING EQUIPPED WITH A FORM, AND AS LONG AS IT RETAINS A FORM IT ENDURES. HAVING A FORM, IT FEEDS AND GROWS BIG. BUT IF YOU INVESTIGATE IT, THIS EVIL SPIRIT, WHICH HAS NO FORM OF ITS OWN, RELINQUISHES ITS GRIP ON FORM AND TAKES TO FLIGHT. Commentary: The form or vehicle of the ego is the mind-body. This mind-body assumes an identity and relationships, and then has desires and fears based on that identity and relationships. This entangles it in more and more thought, and this thought increasingly obscures the fact that this ego is merely an imaginary thing. The movement of thought seems to create the sense that the ego is doing things, much like, as is stated in an ancient scripture, a torch being whirled around seems to create a circle of light. A more modern metaphor might be how two stereo speakers create an illusion of a three-dimensional soundstage and a band. If this ego is investigated — namely, by slowing the thoughts down and trying to find just who is watching the whole show — it suddenly recedes, because the illusion cannot be sustained if you see its background. The illusion is based on separation, and the separation is a trick of misdirection. As long as you’re consumed by desires and fears, then mind moves endlessly, and doesn’t actually investigate who the “I” is who has all of these desires and fears. Start looking, and suddenly it becomes elusive who the I is. The I, which watches, and which cannot be what is watched, cannot seem to find or locate itself. That immediately starts to break up the desires and fears, since they are all premised on the idea that I want this and I fear that. But if you can’t find yourself, then obviously those desires and fears then become less compelling. But stopping there is not enough. The one who cannot find the I is itself the I that is being looked for. That I must be pursued relentlessly, and as it is pursued, concentration, peace, and the desire for liberation generally increase and attachments tend to decrease, though there may be spectacular bouts of fear and passion as the usual identity struggles to hold on to itself. This goes on until the Background of the Mind is finally and inevitably noticed, and the conceit that the mind-body is independent is no longer sustainable. At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. |
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Nov 9, 2021 0:49:40 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Twenty-Five26. IF THE EGO IS, EVERYTHING ELSE ALSO IS. IF THE EGO IS NOT, NOTHING ELSE IS. INDEED, THE EGO IS ALL. THEREFORE THE ENQUIRY AS TO WHAT THIS EGO IS, IS THE ONLY WAY OF GIVING UP EVERYTHING. Commentary: Everything is a series of things. Things are objects with boundaries. Boundaries are always set in relation to an observer, the one who feels that “I am.” Thinking “I am” means thinking “I am not those things.” This “I am” thought is the ego. It is inevitably mixed with the belief that “I am the body and the mind” and various other things. In order to think “I am,” the ego has to implicitly create a sense of what it is, and what it is not. That sense is based on the idea that one is a doing, experiencing person. Only then can you cognize other things. You perceive them in relationship to this person that you think you are. So everything is only possible if there is an ego, a sense of separation, that then creates a world of names and forms. If that sense of separation falls, the boundary-based world cannot stand. All our language and concepts depend on the egoic distinction of an out there as opposed to an in here, on a not-me as opposed to a me. So the only way to really give up everything is to look this egoic illusion in the face. It cannot sustain itself, because the I which is observing everything is not actually that which it seems to be. It seems to be a solid core. It is quite clear that if one looks, though, that the observer is not a solid core. It has no boundaries. It isn’t an object. But if it isn’t an object, then it isn’t “in here,” and if it isn’t “in here,” then the things that are out there aren’t really out there, since they are only out there relative to something that is in here. Names and forms fall, concepts fall, language falls. Everything then is given up, in the sense that it is was never there to begin with. Inquiry into the ego means to turn attention continuously towards the I, that is, towards whatever is noticing experience. The cardinal rule of self-inquiry is that you cannot be what you are aware of; that in order to be aware of something, there has to be a distance between you and it. When one tries to do self-inquiry and find the I, one tends to land on another object of experience. This again cannot be you. Then you try to turn towards whatever is noticing that. On and on the inquiry goes this way, until it is seen that more and more of what you thought you were is actually a series of objects. This is then recognized as not you. Pursued to its end, everything is given up. At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. |
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Post by zazeniac on Nov 10, 2021 11:17:41 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Twenty-Five26. IF THE EGO IS, EVERYTHING ELSE ALSO IS. IF THE EGO IS NOT, NOTHING ELSE IS. INDEED, THE EGO IS ALL. THEREFORE THE ENQUIRY AS TO WHAT THIS EGO IS, IS THE ONLY WAY OF GIVING UP EVERYTHING. Commentary: Everything is a series of things. Things are objects with boundaries. Boundaries are always set in relation to an observer, the one who feels that “I am.” Thinking “I am” means thinking “I am not those things.” This “I am” thought is the ego. It is inevitably mixed with the belief that “I am the body and the mind” and various other things. In order to think “I am,” the ego has to implicitly create a sense of what it is, and what it is not. That sense is based on the idea that one is a doing, experiencing person. Only then can you cognize other things. You perceive them in relationship to this person that you think you are. So everything is only possible if there is an ego, a sense of separation, that then creates a world of names and forms. If that sense of separation falls, the boundary-based world cannot stand. All our language and concepts depend on the egoic distinction of an out there as opposed to an in here, on a not-me as opposed to a me. So the only way to really give up everything is to look this egoic illusion in the face. It cannot sustain itself, because the I which is observing everything is not actually that which it seems to be. It seems to be a solid core. It is quite clear that if one looks, though, that the observer is not a solid core. It has no boundaries. It isn’t an object. But if it isn’t an object, then it isn’t “in here,” and if it isn’t “in here,” then the things that are out there aren’t really out there, since they are only out there relative to something that is in here. Names and forms fall, concepts fall, language falls. Everything then is given up, in the sense that it is was never there to begin with. Inquiry into the ego means to turn attention continuously towards the I, that is, towards whatever is noticing experience. The cardinal rule of self-inquiry is that you cannot be what you are aware of; that in order to be aware of something, there has to be a distance between you and it. When one tries to do self-inquiry and find the I, one tends to land on another object of experience. This again cannot be you. Then you try to turn towards whatever is noticing that. On and on the inquiry goes this way, until it is seen that more and more of what you thought you were is actually a series of objects. This is then recognized as not you. Pursued to its end, everything is given up.At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. So how is the bolded different than neti-neti? |
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What is the J?
