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Post by zendancer on Dec 13, 2022 15:52:44 GMT -5
How does this negate polarity? If you step out of your door and take a walk, no matter where you walk, not matter how many valleys or how many mountains, when you get back home, all ups and downs are equal. The essence of the manifest universe is vibration. There are different rates of vibration. But if you look at a wave, the peak and trough are equal, they balance out. How does and peak and a trough balancing out negate the whole manifest universe? You are not negating Gopal's rollercoaster, it exists. Why doesn't your realization just melt ZD into nothingness, non-existence? ZD wouldn't exist without vibration (crests and troughs). I think you will do better to explain Gopal's rollercoaster, not negate it. The rollercoaster G is talking about is specifically an emotional rollercoaster, which I would say is more a product of human dysfunction and false belief, than it is a universal polarity. We do experience what seems like polarity because there's a measuring and objectifying aspect to the mind, and this aspect can only think in terms of 'presences'. It cannot grok an absence...it objectifies it. Because of this, we experience light and dark as polarity, but in reality, there is no darkness, there is only relative absence of light, cold is a relative absence of heat, quietness is a relative absence of sound etc. So I would say the reality of existence is 'relative contrast', not 'absolute poles'. Or as you said.... vibrational. Unhappiness would be a relative absence of wellbeing. Correct. In the absence of thought no distinction is possible, and this is why Zen people point to "non-abidance in mind." The eyes look at the world, but the intellect imagines what is seen. In the absence of imagining, there is only "what is" as it is. Reality is non-dual. Full stop. Duality only exists in imagination. |
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Post by zendancer on Dec 13, 2022 16:03:39 GMT -5
The issue is rather simple; can one find an actual boundary of any kind? The monk told the ZM that the birds had already flown away. Upon hearing this response to his question about where the birds had gone, the ZM grabbed the monk's nose, twisted it, and shouted, "How could they have possibly flown away?" The ZM was trying to wake the monk up to the unified field of being in front of his eyes. As it turned out, the monk was sufficiently ripe and the ZM was successful. A follower of Ramana supposedly asked him on his deathbed, "Master, are you leaving us?" Ramana replied, "Where could I possibly go?" Same question; same answer. Perhaps the most amazing thing about humans is how they overlook the strangeness of their own bodies and the functionality of every cell composing the body. They imagine that they are separate entities controlling what happens, but they ignore the mind-boggling intelligence animating their own bodies. How does one digest food? Clot blood? Grow skin, hair, or bones? Fight off an infection? Think? See? Feel? The living truth cannot be imagined; it can only be realized. How does this negate polarity? If you step out of your door and take a walk, no matter where you walk, not matter how many valleys or how many mountains, when you get back home, all ups and downs are equal. The essence of the manifest universe is vibration. There are different rates of vibration. But if you look at a wave, the peak and trough are equal, they balance out. How does and peak and a trough balancing out negate the whole manifest universe? You are not negating Gopal's rollercoaster, it exists. Why doesn't your realization just melt ZD into nothingness, non-existence? ZD wouldn't exist without vibration (crests and troughs). I think you will do better to explain Gopal's rollercoaster, not negate it. TMT! Stop thinking/imagining, and look. If the mind is silent, what do the eyes see? I guarantee that the eyes do NOT see a roller coaster, polarities, nothingness, somethingness, levels, vibrations, thingness, or anything else imaginable. The word "THIS" is only a pointer. It points to an infinite unified field of being. It does not negate polarity; it points beyond polarity and all other such concepts. |
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Post by andrew on Dec 13, 2022 16:09:09 GMT -5
The rollercoaster G is talking about is specifically an emotional rollercoaster, which I would say is more a product of human dysfunction and false belief, than it is a universal polarity. We do experience what seems like polarity because there's a measuring and objectifying aspect to the mind, and this aspect can only think in terms of 'presences'. It cannot grok an absence...it objectifies it. Because of this, we experience light and dark as polarity, but in reality, there is no darkness, there is only relative absence of light, cold is a relative absence of heat, quietness is a relative absence of sound etc. So I would say the reality of existence is 'relative contrast', not 'absolute poles'. Or as you said.... vibrational. Unhappiness would be a relative absence of wellbeing. Correct. In the absence of thought no distinction is possible, and this is why Zen people point to "non-abidance in mind." The eyes look at the world, but the intellect imagines what is seen. In the absence of imagining, these is only "what is" as it is. Reality is non-dual. Full stop. Duality only exists in imagination. Yes, agree. I'd perhaps say 'duality' exists as an abstract calculation (e.g up and down, left and right) I think that's what you call 'imagination'. Relatively speaking, I am okay to say that 'qualities' exist (or appear) such as light, heat, sound etc, but these exist (or appear) as contrast, rather than as duality. These qualities don't stand in opposition to each other, hence why they are not separate from each other. |
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Post by zendancer on Dec 13, 2022 17:02:33 GMT -5
Correct. In the absence of thought no distinction is possible, and this is why Zen people point to "non-abidance in mind." The eyes look at the world, but the intellect imagines what is seen. In the absence of imagining, these is only "what is" as it is. Reality is non-dual. Full stop. Duality only exists in imagination. Yes, agree. I'd perhaps say 'duality' exists as an abstract calculation (e.g up and down, left and right) I think that's what you call 'imagination'. Relatively speaking, I am okay to say that 'qualities' exist (or appear) such as light, heat, sound etc, but these exist (or appear) as contrast, rather than as duality. These qualities don't stand in opposition to each other, hence why they are not separate from each other. When we were young, our parents pointed to various aspects of reality and encouraged us to distinguish what we saw as separate objects and to distinguish words that could symbolize the image distinctions and idea distinctions. They pointed and said, "that's a tree." Or, "I'm your mother." Or "your name is John Doe." We were also conditioned to imagine qualities, relationships, states of being, etc. In short, we were conditioned to imagine the same things that our parents, peers, and teachers imagined--a meta-reality (or consensus paradigm) that soon took precedence over reality, itself. Language enabled us to symbolically communicate with each other about those abstractions. The path of ND is a path that reverses this trajectory until we can discern the difference between reality as it is and our ideas, images, and symbols that represent the unspeakable, unthinkable, and undivided field of being that is our true nature. Whether we point to that field of being with a word like "THIS" or "The Infinite" or "the kingdom of God" makes no difference. Jesus reportedly said via the Gospel of Thomas, "The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, but men do not see it." |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Dec 13, 2022 17:04:22 GMT -5
How does this negate polarity? If you step out of your door and take a walk, no matter where you walk, not matter how many valleys or how many mountains, when you get back home, all ups and downs are equal. The essence of the manifest universe is vibration. There are different rates of vibration. But if you look at a wave, the peak and trough are equal, they balance out. How does and peak and a trough balancing out negate the whole manifest universe? You are not negating Gopal's rollercoaster, it exists. Why doesn't your realization just melt ZD into nothingness, non-existence? ZD wouldn't exist without vibration (crests and troughs). I think you will do better to explain Gopal's rollercoaster, not negate it. which I would say is more a product of human dysfunction and false belief, than it is a universal polarity. We do experience what seems like polarity because there's a measuring and objectifying aspect to the mind, and this aspect can only think in terms of 'presences'. It cannot grok an absence...it objectifies it. Because of this, we experience light and dark as polarity, but in reality, there is no darkness, there is only relative absence of light, cold is a relative absence of heat, quietness is a relative absence of sound etc. So I would say the reality of existence is 'relative contrast', not 'absolute poles'. Or as you said.... vibrational. Unhappiness would be a relative absence of wellbeing. Gopal can clarify. I've never took him to mean just an emotional rollercoaster. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Dec 13, 2022 17:10:58 GMT -5
How does this negate polarity? If you step out of your door and take a walk, no matter where you walk, not matter how many valleys or how many mountains, when you get back home, all ups and downs are equal. The essence of the manifest universe is vibration. There are different rates of vibration. But if you look at a wave, the peak and trough are equal, they balance out. How does and peak and a trough balancing out negate the whole manifest universe? You are not negating Gopal's rollercoaster, it exists. Why doesn't your realization just melt ZD into nothingness, non-existence? ZD wouldn't exist without vibration (crests and troughs). I think you will do better to explain Gopal's rollercoaster, not negate it. TMT! Stop thinking/imagining, and look. If the mind is silent, what do the eyes see? I guarantee that the eyes do NOT see a roller coaster, polarities, nothingness, somethingness, levels, vibrations, thingness, or anything else imaginable. The word "THIS" is only a pointer. It points to an infinite unified field of being. It does not negate polarity; it points beyond polarity and all other such concepts. I will give an example. In elementary school looking at a map of the world, I could always see South America fitting into Africa like two puzzle pieces. I never mentioned it to anyone. It took some guy, don't recall his name, to devise the idea of continental drift, and we eventually came to know that South America and Africa actually did once fit together. The actuality came before the theory, but the theory discovered the actuality. That came from just looking... The idea did not negate the fact. There are some so-called distinctions which are imaginary and some which are not. Phrenology used to be called a science, the bumps on your head were supposed to correspond to your character. That was definitely imaginary. It seems if we take things the way you say we should, the imaginary is part of the whole. Is that not what Gopal's OP is about? Is this not what the whole climate debate is about? It seems that if man didn't exist, the planet would be doing fine, we wouldn't have the pollution we do. If man didn't exist we wouldn't have tons of nuclear waste from nuclear power plants, which are just a fancy way to boil water, that's going to last for thousands of years, and we have to keep very good bookkeeping on all that, or somebody is going to dig it up in 50,000 years, and die. So it seems man has gone against the flow. If we took things to be as they were before modern man existed, say 100,000 years ago, I could agree with you. Alan Watts said that nature is always squiggly, no straight lines. I completely agree. But man has made *straight lines*, building buildings and laying out city grids. So you either have to say houses and buildings are imaginary, or qualify your statements. I'd say man's ~imagination~ has screwed up the planet. It seems all the problems we have in the world, poverty, famine, murder, terrorism, war, come from man's imagination, corrupt ideas in disagreement with the natural. |
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Post by zendancer on Dec 13, 2022 18:00:56 GMT -5
TMT! Stop thinking/imagining, and look. If the mind is silent, what do the eyes see? I guarantee that the eyes do NOT see a roller coaster, polarities, nothingness, somethingness, levels, vibrations, thingness, or anything else imaginable. The word "THIS" is only a pointer. It points to an infinite unified field of being. It does not negate polarity; it points beyond polarity and all other such concepts. I will give an example. In elementary school looking at a map of the world, I could always see South America fitting into Africa like two puzzle pieces. I never mentioned it to anyone. It took some guy, don't recall his name, to devise the idea of continental drift, and we eventually came to know that South America and Africa actually did once fit together. The actuality came before the theory, but the theory discovered the actuality. That came from just looking... The idea did not negate the fact. Again, this is just imagination. It did not arise as a result of simple looking; it came from the intellect imagining lines of demarcation, boundaries, patterns, etc. If a Zen student posted this, A ZM might hold up a map of the world and ask, "What is this?" or "What do you see?" If the student so much as opened his/her mouth, the ZM would ring his bell and suggest more meditation. ND is beyond ideation or words symbolizing ideational abstractions. It points beyond anything that can be imagined. |
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Post by zendancer on Dec 13, 2022 18:02:29 GMT -5
TMT! Stop thinking/imagining, and look. If the mind is silent, what do the eyes see? I guarantee that the eyes do NOT see a roller coaster, polarities, nothingness, somethingness, levels, vibrations, thingness, or anything else imaginable. The word "THIS" is only a pointer. It points to an infinite unified field of being. It does not negate polarity; it points beyond polarity and all other such concepts. I will give an example. In elementary school looking at a map of the world, I could always see South America fitting into Africa like two puzzle pieces. I never mentioned it to anyone. It took some guy, don't recall his name, to devise the idea of continental drift, and we eventually came to know that South America and Africa actually did once fit together. The actuality came before the theory, but the theory discovered the actuality. That came from just looking... The idea did not negate the fact. There are some so-called distinctions which are imaginary and some which are not. Phrenology used to be called a science, the bumps on your head were supposed to correspond to your character. That was definitely imaginary. It seems if we take things the way you say we should, the imaginary is part of the whole. Is that not what Gopal's OP is about? Is this not what the whole climate debate is about? It seems that if man didn't exist, the planet would be doing fine, we wouldn't have the pollution we do. If man didn't exist we wouldn't have tons of nuclear waste from nuclear power plants, which are just a fancy way to boil water, that's going to last for thousands of years, and we have to keep very good bookkeeping on all that, or somebody is going to dig it up in 50,000 years, and die. So it seems man has gone against the flow. If we took things to be as they were before modern man existed, say 100,000 years ago, I could agree with you. Alan Watts said that nature is always squiggly, no straight lines. I completely agree. But man has made *straight lines*, building buildings and laying out city grids. So you either have to say houses and buildings are imaginary, or qualify your statements. I'd say man's ~imagination~ has screwed up the planet. It seems all the problems we have in the world, poverty, famine, murder, terrorism, war, come from man's imagination, corrupt ideas in disagreement with the natural. Name one distinction that is not imaginary. |
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Post by inavalan on Dec 13, 2022 18:58:13 GMT -5
I will give an example. In elementary school ... Name one distinction that is not imaginary. SR vs. non-SR? savikalpa vs. nirvikalpa? What does "imaginary" mean in your question? THIS vs imaginary? |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2022 21:38:57 GMT -5
When you are getting angry, you assume something should not have happened this way, this means you are losing your ability to watch the movie as it is. As a result, you are going against the flow, you are resisting! There are times when the most relative flow is found in acceptance of resistance. Tolle, ''Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.'' Sometimes the present moment includes resistance, maybe even anger. If anger arises, then that's what is, in that moment. Yes, ideally, our relative flow is aligned to absolute flow (and that's very lovely) but that's not the way life consistently happens for most of us. If someone tries to take your baby away, are you just going to let them? I will get angry, yes. But If anger arises, then that indicates that I have lost the ability to watch the movie. I am resisting. But you are creating the story, if the story pisses you off, then something wrong. Arising anger clearly tells you that you are out of alignment with your nature. I am not talking about trying to be not to get angry when you feel anger. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2022 22:15:13 GMT -5
Rollercoaster realization still missing in your case  Happiness/unhappiness are both states which are a product of a mixture of our conditions, our physiology and our beliefs/understandings. One is positive leaning, the other is negative leaning, and while positive and negative define and balance each other, a balanced state is also a positive leaning state! So we naturally lean towards the positive...our natural state is positive leaning. Look at the animals and you will see this. This is also why happiness cannot cause unhappiness... unhappiness requires very specific ingredients. Roller-coaster realization is missing  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2022 22:21:12 GMT -5
The issue is rather simple; can one find an actual boundary of any kind? The monk told the ZM that the birds had already flown away. Upon hearing this response to his question about where the birds had gone, the ZM grabbed the monk's nose, twisted it, and shouted, "How could they have possibly flown away?" The ZM was trying to wake the monk up to the unified field of being in front of his eyes. As it turned out, the monk was sufficiently ripe and the ZM was successful. A follower of Ramana supposedly asked him on his deathbed, "Master, are you leaving us?" Ramana replied, "Where could I possibly go?" Same question; same answer. Perhaps the most amazing thing about humans is how they overlook the strangeness of their own bodies and the functionality of every cell composing the body. They imagine that they are separate entities controlling what happens, but they ignore the mind-boggling intelligence animating their own bodies. How does one digest food? Clot blood? Grow skin, hair, or bones? Fight off an infection? Think? See? Feel? The living truth cannot be imagined; it can only be realized. How does this negate polarity? If you step out of your door and take a walk, no matter where you walk, not matter how many valleys or how many mountains, when you get back home, all ups and downs are equal. The essence of the manifest universe is vibration. There are different rates of vibration. But if you look at a wave, the peak and trough are equal, they balance out. How does and peak and a trough balancing out negate the whole manifest universe? You are not negating Gopal's rollercoaster, it exists. Why doesn't your realization just melt ZD into nothingness, non-existence? ZD wouldn't exist without vibration (crests and troughs). I think you will do better to explain Gopal's rollercoaster, not negate it. He is getting angry, he is getting irritated but still he continue to speak against roller-coaster, that's because there is no reference with him for roller-coaster. Roller-coaster is not easy for everyone to see, it's realized. |
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Post by Reefs on Dec 13, 2022 23:40:25 GMT -5
Nothing happens in Oneness. Nothing happens in equilibrium. Nothing would ever happen if it remained so. Nothing else would ever happen if there were not a deliberate conscious intelligent choice to do so. So Intelligent Consciousness formed an opposition. An interesting guy several hundred years ago described it this way. Ein Sof withdrew Its presence from a single point to make a space where-It-wasn't. This single point became the manifest universe. Now, this sounds very peculiarly like the Big Bang. Now, I agree that the Origin was singular with no opposite. But it seems deception, or imagination, has entered the picture, somewhere. How did the deception arise? It seems one thing is the case. Either the Originating Oneness deliberately formed the universe as it is, positive-negative, yang-yin, the rollercoaster, or we have the "Alan Watts" view, "God" formed the universe as a game of hide and seek, there is still only-One-no-thing, but God has forgotten who-He/She/It-is, God has gone to sleep, two-ness is imaginary. So how did it happened, or maybe why did it happen is a better question? So I guess we are faced with dilemma. Did Oneness accidentally (or purposely) go to sleep, forget who He/She/It is, still as the Whole? Or was the rollercoaster universe formed for a reason, and it's imagination that believes there is no rollercoaster. It seems one or the other has to be delusion. We can agree that the Origin was Oneness. I have no problem with anyone coming to this realization. But why does this realization negate the dual universe? In what does imagination consist? The nondual view is pantheism, "God" is everything. My view is pan entheism. Isaac Luria Ashkenazi (ARI = Ashkenazi Rabbi Isaac): 1534-72. Major Doctrines: Tzimtzum: Contraction: God must withdraw from a portion of the universe in order to create something other than himself. Leaves "point" of emptiness, primordial space, substratum for creation: Tehiru. Leaves residue of divine light: Reshimu (mercy + traces of Din): Vessels to receive emanated light. Requires separation of forces of Din-Justice from undistinguished totality, principle of (Self-) limitation. When you start with a flawed premise, it can only get wronger from there. Oneness is not an entity, thing or place. What oneness refers to is more like the texture of THIS, in its manifested and unmanifested form alike. |
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Post by Reefs on Dec 13, 2022 23:42:46 GMT -5
The issue is rather simple; can one find an actual boundary of any kind? The monk told the ZM that the birds had already flown away. Upon hearing this response to his question about where the birds had gone, the ZM grabbed the monk's nose, twisted it, and shouted, "How could they have possibly flown away?" The ZM was trying to wake the monk up to the unified field of being in front of his eyes. As it turned out, the monk was sufficiently ripe and the ZM was successful. A follower of Ramana supposedly asked him on his deathbed, "Master, are you leaving us?" Ramana replied, "Where could I possibly go?" Same question; same answer. Perhaps the most amazing thing about humans is how they overlook the strangeness of their own bodies and the functionality of every cell composing the body. They imagine that they are separate entities controlling what happens, but they ignore the mind-boggling intelligence animating their own bodies. How does one digest food? Clot blood? Grow skin, hair, or bones? Fight off an infection? Think? See? Feel? The living truth cannot be imagined; it can only be realized. How does this negate polarity? If you step out of your door and take a walk, no matter where you walk, not matter how many valleys or how many mountains, when you get back home, all ups and downs are equal. The essence of the manifest universe is vibration. There are different rates of vibration. But if you look at a wave, the peak and trough are equal, they balance out. How does and peak and a trough balancing out negate the whole manifest universe? You are not negating Gopal's rollercoaster, it exists. Why doesn't your realization just melt ZD into nothingness, non-existence? ZD wouldn't exist without vibration (crests and troughs). I think you will do better to explain Gopal's rollercoaster, not negate it. The rollercoaster exists, but it is not real. |
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Post by Reefs on Dec 13, 2022 23:47:46 GMT -5
How does this negate polarity? If you step out of your door and take a walk, no matter where you walk, not matter how many valleys or how many mountains, when you get back home, all ups and downs are equal. The essence of the manifest universe is vibration. There are different rates of vibration. But if you look at a wave, the peak and trough are equal, they balance out. How does and peak and a trough balancing out negate the whole manifest universe? You are not negating Gopal's rollercoaster, it exists. Why doesn't your realization just melt ZD into nothingness, non-existence? ZD wouldn't exist without vibration (crests and troughs). I think you will do better to explain Gopal's rollercoaster, not negate it. The rollercoaster G is talking about is specifically an emotional rollercoaster, which I would say is more a product of human dysfunction and false belief, than it is a universal polarity. We do experience what seems like polarity because there's a measuring and objectifying aspect to the mind, and this aspect can only think in terms of 'presences'. It cannot grok an absence...it objectifies it. Because of this, we experience light and dark as polarity, but in reality, there is no darkness, there is only relative absence of light, cold is a relative absence of heat, quietness is a relative absence of sound etc. So I would say the reality of existence is 'relative contrast', not 'absolute poles'. Or as you said.... vibrational. Unhappiness would be a relative absence of wellbeing. In essence, the rollercoaster experience is the result of lazy focusing, i.e. creating by default, or merely reacting to life instead of creating your life. If that is realized, that's an important realization. But the conclusion that the rollercoaster experience is what life is, that's nonsense with a bit of taste of sour grapes on top. |
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