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Post by zazeniac on Jun 27, 2021 13:53:17 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Three: 4. IF ONE HAS FORM ONESELF, THE WORLD AND GOD ALSO WILL APPEAR TO HAVE FORM, BUT IF ONE IS FORMLESS, WHO IS IT THAT SEES THOSE FORMS, AND HOW? WITHOUT THE EYE CAN ANY OBJECT BE SEEN? THE SEEING SELF IS THE EYE, AND THAT EYE IS THE EYE OF INFINITY. Commentary: A form is a boundary. If you have a form, it means that you have a boundary. Other things, like the world and God, are contrasted to that boundary. They are the not-you. It is by the creation of mental boundaries that we have experiences. Without a form, without those boundaries, there is no way to differentiate self and other. There is therefore no way to use concepts, no way to use language, no way to say “individual,” “world,” “God.” The eye is the form of the instrument of knowing, and it differentiates things into forms with boundaries. This eye can be regarded both as physical or as metaphorical — i.e. as the egoic mind, the mind which says “I” and “not-I.” But in reality what sees is no physical or even mental I. Rather, the Self sees, and that Self is infinite — meaning boundless, meaning formless. There is no actual space in it for I and not-I. For that Eye, the true Eye, its Seeing is no seeing. Ordinary seeing can be understood. But the Seeing of that Eye, when inquired into, leads straight into the silence of the incomprehensible. It stuns the mind into silence. At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. Is the Self ever not infinite? And is the ego ever not illusory? The individual just "seems" real, convincingly so. Convincing enough to have us posting on this site. |
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Post by zendancer on Jun 27, 2021 16:37:44 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Three: 4. IF ONE HAS FORM ONESELF, THE WORLD AND GOD ALSO WILL APPEAR TO HAVE FORM, BUT IF ONE IS FORMLESS, WHO IS IT THAT SEES THOSE FORMS, AND HOW? WITHOUT THE EYE CAN ANY OBJECT BE SEEN? THE SEEING SELF IS THE EYE, AND THAT EYE IS THE EYE OF INFINITY. Commentary: A form is a boundary. If you have a form, it means that you have a boundary. Other things, like the world and God, are contrasted to that boundary. They are the not-you. It is by the creation of mental boundaries that we have experiences. Without a form, without those boundaries, there is no way to differentiate self and other. There is therefore no way to use concepts, no way to use language, no way to say “individual,” “world,” “God.” The eye is the form of the instrument of knowing, and it differentiates things into forms with boundaries. This eye can be regarded both as physical or as metaphorical — i.e. as the egoic mind, the mind which says “I” and “not-I.” But in reality what sees is no physical or even mental I. Rather, the Self sees, and that Self is infinite — meaning boundless, meaning formless. There is no actual space in it for I and not-I. For that Eye, the true Eye, its Seeing is no seeing. Ordinary seeing can be understood. But the Seeing of that Eye, when inquired into, leads straight into the silence of the incomprehensible. It stuns the mind into silence. At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. Is the Self ever not infinite? And is the ego ever not illusory? The individual just "seems" real, convincingly so. Convincing enough to have us posting on this site. No, and no. Human bodies seem like things with boundaries separating them from everything else, but that's only because we don't consider air, water, food, etc that comes into the body and goes out of the body as part of a ceaseless transformative process. Nevertheless, waves can be distinguished on the surface of the ocean even though they and the water beneath are the same. A body is just like a wave temporarily appearing and then disappearing. It's the sense of being a separate entity inhabiting and controlling a body that creates the illusion of the SVP. When that illusion is penetrated, then it's realized that there is only THIS ceaselessly transforming--a seamless isness without beginning, end, or any kind of separation. |
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Jun 27, 2021 17:48:01 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Three: 4. IF ONE HAS FORM ONESELF, THE WORLD AND GOD ALSO WILL APPEAR TO HAVE FORM, BUT IF ONE IS FORMLESS, WHO IS IT THAT SEES THOSE FORMS, AND HOW? WITHOUT THE EYE CAN ANY OBJECT BE SEEN? THE SEEING SELF IS THE EYE, AND THAT EYE IS THE EYE OF INFINITY. Commentary: A form is a boundary. If you have a form, it means that you have a boundary. Other things, like the world and God, are contrasted to that boundary. They are the not-you. It is by the creation of mental boundaries that we have experiences. Without a form, without those boundaries, there is no way to differentiate self and other. There is therefore no way to use concepts, no way to use language, no way to say “individual,” “world,” “God.” The eye is the form of the instrument of knowing, and it differentiates things into forms with boundaries. This eye can be regarded both as physical or as metaphorical — i.e. as the egoic mind, the mind which says “I” and “not-I.”But in reality what sees is no physical or even mental I. Rather, the Self sees, and that Self is infinite — meaning boundless, meaning formless. There is no actual space in it for I and not-I. For that Eye, the true Eye, its Seeing is no seeing. Ordinary seeing can be understood. But the Seeing of that Eye, when inquired into, leads straight into the silence of the incomprehensible. It stuns the mind into silence. At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. I would claim that the instrument of knowing is not the eye but the intellect. Sure, I was just referencing Ramana's text when I said this, which is why I said the eye could be considered metaphorically as the division-creating egoic mind (i.e. what you're calling the intellect). |
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Jun 27, 2021 17:52:36 GMT -5
a CC adds a dimension to one's understanding that seems to be absent if one only has realizations. Clearly, waking up, seeing through the illusion of selfhood, and becoming free and at peace can occur without the occurrence of a CC, but, if nothing else, a CC automatically and spontaneously creates a lasting sense of awe, humility, and reverence that realizations, alone, do not always seem to foster. One of these days it would be interesting to learn what the Advaita tradition has to say about this. Advaita doesn't have any specific categorical distinction for "CCs," but it certainly refers to them in various texts. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna shows his divine and universal form to Arjuna in Chapter 11, for instance. But ultimately, however grand and awesome, etc., it is, advaita would consider it in the end merely another experience. |
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Jun 27, 2021 17:54:30 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Three: 4. IF ONE HAS FORM ONESELF, THE WORLD AND GOD ALSO WILL APPEAR TO HAVE FORM, BUT IF ONE IS FORMLESS, WHO IS IT THAT SEES THOSE FORMS, AND HOW? WITHOUT THE EYE CAN ANY OBJECT BE SEEN? THE SEEING SELF IS THE EYE, AND THAT EYE IS THE EYE OF INFINITY. Commentary: A form is a boundary. If you have a form, it means that you have a boundary. Other things, like the world and God, are contrasted to that boundary. They are the not-you. It is by the creation of mental boundaries that we have experiences. Without a form, without those boundaries, there is no way to differentiate self and other. There is therefore no way to use concepts, no way to use language, no way to say “individual,” “world,” “God.” The eye is the form of the instrument of knowing, and it differentiates things into forms with boundaries. This eye can be regarded both as physical or as metaphorical — i.e. as the egoic mind, the mind which says “I” and “not-I.” But in reality what sees is no physical or even mental I. Rather, the Self sees, and that Self is infinite — meaning boundless, meaning formless. There is no actual space in it for I and not-I. For that Eye, the true Eye, its Seeing is no seeing. Ordinary seeing can be understood. But the Seeing of that Eye, when inquired into, leads straight into the silence of the incomprehensible. It stuns the mind into silence. At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. Is the Self ever not infinite? And is the ego ever not illusory? The individual just "seems" real, convincingly so. Convincing enough to have us posting on this site. Well, in the end it's all beyond language. So that's the sense in which the Self is ever not infinite -- in the sense that 'infinite' is a word. |
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Post by zendancer on Jun 28, 2021 6:51:32 GMT -5
Advaita doesn't have any specific categorical distinction for "CCs," but it certainly refers to them in various texts. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna shows his divine and universal form to Arjuna in Chapter 11, for instance. But ultimately, however grand and awesome, etc., it is, advaita would consider it in the end merely another experience. Yes, that seems to be the consensus view in most ND circles, but my point, and that of Reefs, is that it's not an experience in any ordinary sense because there is no separate identifiable experiencer present, no time, no space, and no separation. Most importantly, such "events" (which I prefer to call them), can often result in numerous major realizations, and the infinite nature of THIS is directly apprehensible. Apparently, judging by what the Buddha told his followers, his awakening was a single CC, and it's probable that this was true for Ramana as well as a few others. Unlike most people who have CC's, the Buddha, Ramana, and a few others did not come away from those events thinking that they were SVP's who had had a CC. The CC's were so complete that they eliminated the illusion of the SVP as well as revealing the infinite nature and mind-bogglingness of THIS. |
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Post by zazeniac on Jun 28, 2021 8:44:54 GMT -5
Advaita doesn't have any specific categorical distinction for "CCs," but it certainly refers to them in various texts. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna shows his divine and universal form to Arjuna in Chapter 11, for instance. But ultimately, however grand and awesome, etc., it is, advaita would consider it in the end merely another experience. Yes, that seems to be the consensus view in most ND circles, but my point, and that of Reefs, is that it's not an experience in any ordinary sense because there is no separate identifiable experiencer present, no time, no space, and no separation. Most importantly, such "events" (which I prefer to call them), can often result in numerous major realizations, and the infinite nature of THIS is directly apprehensible. Apparently, judging by what the Buddha told his followers, his awakening was a single CC, and it's probable that this was true for Ramana as well as a few others. Unlike most people who have CC's, the Buddha, Ramana, and a few others did not come away from those events thinking that they were SVP's who had had a CC. The CC's were so complete that they eliminated the illusion of the SVP as well as revealing the infinite nature and mind-bogglingness of THIS. Isn't what you describe a "woo-woo" experience? And for some folks here, I think Reefs included, "woo-woo" is an SR no-no. |
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Post by zendancer on Jun 28, 2021 12:50:48 GMT -5
Yes, that seems to be the consensus view in most ND circles, but my point, and that of Reefs, is that it's not an experience in any ordinary sense because there is no separate identifiable experiencer present, no time, no space, and no separation. Most importantly, such "events" (which I prefer to call them), can often result in numerous major realizations, and the infinite nature of THIS is directly apprehensible. Apparently, judging by what the Buddha told his followers, his awakening was a single CC, and it's probable that this was true for Ramana as well as a few others. Unlike most people who have CC's, the Buddha, Ramana, and a few others did not come away from those events thinking that they were SVP's who had had a CC. The CC's were so complete that they eliminated the illusion of the SVP as well as revealing the infinite nature and mind-bogglingness of THIS. Isn't what you describe a "woo-woo" experience? And for some folks here, I think Reefs included, "woo-woo" is an SR no-no. Yes, it is what some of us have called a "woo-woo" experience, but that type of experience (or event) is quite common in Zen, and I can think of numerous Zen Masters who have described them. They almost always result in what Zen people call "passing through the gateless gate." Reefs has written about kensho events, and, like me, he thinks that they add something extra to one's insight into the true nature of reality. In fact, I think kensho is defined in the Rinzai tradition as "seeing into one's true nature." Unfortunately, Zen writers have not adequately described the difference between satori and kensho. Reefs and I both assumed that satori is seeing through the illusion of selfhood and kensho is the equivalent of a CC. Hakuin claimed in his autobiography that he had had more than a hundred kenshos, some big and some small, but he and other ZM's have, to the best of my knowledge, never clearly delineated, or made the distinction that we often make between realizations and experiences. Hakuin also claimed to have had two satoris, the second of which was the most powerful event in his life. If seeing through the illusion of selfhood is equivalent to satori, then how could there be a second satori? His claim about two satoris makes me think that he was describing kenshos, or that his definition of satori is NOT equivalent to seeing through the illusion of selfhood. A kensho event is usually triggered by some sensory event. In the Buddha's case it was seeing the planet Venus rise in the morning sky. One ZM got the whole shebang when he heard a pebble strike a bamboo fence. ZM Seung Sahn had a huge kensho upon hearing a temple gong reverberate in a valley below him. One ZM had a big kensho when he smelled peach blossoms. The kensho I had was triggered by the ringing of a telephone. Katsuki Sekida's kensho was triggered when he repeated a passage from a book he had read the day before. Helen Courtois's kensho began while staring at a small desk in her bedroom. After Hakuin's first kensho, he thought that he had become enlightened, but his master just laughed at him. After a second kensho, his master kicked him off the porch of the monastery into the mud and laughed at him again. After his third kensho, his master no longer made fun of him, but it was something like ten more years before Hakuin attained what he called "the essence of Zen." It's unfortunate that most ZM's have not described in detail exactly what happened to them along the pathless path. |
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Post by inavalan on Jun 28, 2021 14:48:19 GMT -5
... It's unfortunate that most ZM's have not described in detail exactly what happened to them along the pathless path. This is funny ... Surely there is a numberless number of wordless wordings for understandless understanding ... |
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Post by zendancer on Jun 28, 2021 18:55:30 GMT -5
... It's unfortunate that most ZM's have not described in detail exactly what happened to them along the pathless path. This is funny ... Surely there is a numberless number of wordless wordings for understandless understanding ... Indeed, it can be quite funny, but in the Zen tradition it's considered very bad form to say anything about yourself that might make you seem "special," so this is a limiting factor in that tradition as far as writing about what happened to oneself. Fortunately, on this forum, and in the TAT organization, there is no such limiting factor, so one can talk about many things that Zen people might consider off limits. Some personal accounts are far more descriptive than others, and because I like stories, I'm totally down with those kinds of accounts.  |
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Post by zazeniac on Jun 28, 2021 19:15:39 GMT -5
This is funny ... Surely there is a numberless number of wordless wordings for understandless understanding ... Indeed, it can be quite funny, but in the Zen tradition it's considered very bad form to say anything about yourself that might make you seem "special," so this is a limiting factor in that tradition as far as writing about what happened to oneself. Fortunately, on this forum, and in the TAT organization, there is no such limiting factor, so one can talk about many things that Zen people might consider off limits. Some personal accounts are far more descriptive than others, and because I like stories, I'm totally down with those kinds of accounts. I think in the Zen tradition there is a caveat about creating expectations least it become fodder for the mind to reach for. |
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Post by inavalan on Jun 28, 2021 21:20:19 GMT -5
This is funny ... Surely there is a numberless number of wordless wordings for understandless understanding ... Indeed, it can be quite funny, but in the Zen tradition it's considered very bad form to say anything about yourself that might make you seem "special," so this is a limiting factor in that tradition as far as writing about what happened to oneself. Fortunately, on this forum, and in the TAT organization, there is no such limiting factor, so one can talk about many things that Zen people might consider off limits. Some personal accounts are far more descriptive than others, and because I like stories, I'm totally down with those kinds of accounts. I'd say that the point of calling it "pathless path" is to emphasize that there is "no one-size-fits-all path" to follow, so describing one's experience in anyway would become a hindrance for those who would learn about it, and be thrown off their own paths. The only source of knowledge and guidance, beyond some early initiation, should be looked for only inwards: no description, nor teaching from external sources, beyond the early steps. This kind of formulations, like "pathless path" may be misleading to the honest ignorant seeker, and a signal of pretension from the stupid seeker. There are people who learn a jargon and parrot it, carelessly misleading others. |
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Post by zendancer on Jun 29, 2021 5:57:47 GMT -5
Indeed, it can be quite funny, but in the Zen tradition it's considered very bad form to say anything about yourself that might make you seem "special," so this is a limiting factor in that tradition as far as writing about what happened to oneself. Fortunately, on this forum, and in the TAT organization, there is no such limiting factor, so one can talk about many things that Zen people might consider off limits. Some personal accounts are far more descriptive than others, and because I like stories, I'm totally down with those kinds of accounts. I'd say that the point of calling it "pathless path" is to emphasize that there is "no one-size-fits-all path" to follow, so describing one's experience in anyway would become a hindrance for those who would learn about it, and be thrown off their own paths. The only source of knowledge and guidance, beyond some early initiation, should be looked for only inwards: no description, nor teaching from external sources, beyond the early steps. This kind of formulations, like "pathless path" may be misleading to the honest ignorant seeker, and a signal of pretension from the stupid seeker. There are people who learn a jargon and parrot it, carelessly misleading others. We use the term "pathless path" for a different reason that the Diamond Sutra makes explicit. FWIW, many valuable things can be learned from the experiences of others. Waking up is correlated with many activities, most of which are unknown to the general public. Learning about those activities can be extremely helpful. If we asked Joe Public if he knows how to "look within" we'll probably get a blank stare of incomprehension.  |
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Post by zendancer on Jun 29, 2021 6:02:27 GMT -5
Indeed, it can be quite funny, but in the Zen tradition it's considered very bad form to say anything about yourself that might make you seem "special," so this is a limiting factor in that tradition as far as writing about what happened to oneself. Fortunately, on this forum, and in the TAT organization, there is no such limiting factor, so one can talk about many things that Zen people might consider off limits. Some personal accounts are far more descriptive than others, and because I like stories, I'm totally down with those kinds of accounts. I think in the Zen tradition there is a caveat about creating expectations least it become fodder for the mind to reach for. Yes. That's why Zen people talk about meditating "with no gaining idea." Fortunately, no one here has any gaining ideas.  |
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Jun 29, 2021 22:14:02 GMT -5
Continued from Verse Four5. The body is a form composed of the five-fold sheath; therefore, all the five sheaths are implied in the term, body. Apart from the body does the world exist? Has anyone seen the world without the body? Commentary: The five-fold sheath is a Vedantic idea that understands the body-mind to be a complex which includes five layers, like an onion. Each layer in some sense is the product of the layers within it, and in some sense produces the layers outside it. The outer-most layer is the physical organs. Then comes the prana, or physiological energy. Then is said to be the seat of the emotions. Then, within that is our ability to reason and to decide. And finally within that is the ego, the sense that “I am.” Note that this sense, too, is actually just a layer, just as insentient as all the other layers. It claims to be conscious, claims to be deciding and feeling and all the other layers, but it can no more do those things than a piece of paper can actually think and feel. It is only when the light of consciousness hits that insentient “I am” thought that the reflected consciousness appears to experience the world. The body, however, is a kind of instrument for seeing the world, much like a novel is an instrument for experiencing a fictional universe. When readers read a book, they project an imaginary landscape peopled by imaginary people. Both the reader and the book are required for this to happen. So the body establishes boundaries and mental concepts which are the tools by which everything else seems to be experienced. The world as we know it is always the world as perceived and cognized by the body (where the body is understood to include all the mental and emotional instruments together). At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here. |
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