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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 20, 2023 8:10:49 GMT -5
Btw, don't give a rat's ass about individual identify, mostly baggage it is. Just stuck in my opposional defiant teenage years. Time for a short hiatus. Peace. But you do identify strongly with this soto nonsense, don't you? This is what I mentioned earlier. Integration is key. And you can't integrate your realizations when you are still struggling with basic psychological issues, when you go thru these on/off cycles that you don't seem to be able to control. That's why on the yoga path and in traditional advaita, the first order of business is to help students to leave their psychological hiccups behind so that they become balanced individuals. And only then they are slowly introduced to meditation and deeper truths. Nowadays people just jump right into meditation, have some insights, but still struggle with psychological baggage and the result is very unbalanced individuals. That's not freedom, that's still bondage. I guess I'll ask an unanswerable question, do you think you have any blind-spots? Seriously. .....There's something I don't get in the ND "paradigm". OTOH you (not just Reefs, a plural you), say there is no separate volitional person doing anything. And then here OToH you say "you can't integrate your realizations...", don't you see that's not resolvable? How can you suggest: "you don't seem to be able to control"? You can't have it both ways. What is it that makes "basic psychological issues" go away? What do you mean by you? This context business just doesn't do it for me, seems like a loophole. And you have it backwards, from my POV. The only process of change IS meditation. Every other attempt is just moving chairs on the Titanic. There's more I'd like to say, but to say more I'd like a reply on these. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 20, 2023 8:25:28 GMT -5
But you do identify strongly with this soto nonsense, don't you? This is what I mentioned earlier. Integration is key. And you can't integrate your realizations when you are still struggling with basic psychological issues, when you go thru these on/off cycles that you don't seem to be able to control. That's why on the yoga path and in traditional advaita, the first order of business is to help students to leave their psychological hiccups behind so that they become balanced individuals. And only then they are slowly introduced to meditation and deeper truths. Nowadays people just jump right into meditation, have some insights, but still struggle with psychological baggage and the result is very unbalanced individuals. That's not freedom, that's still bondage. Integration, alignment. You're starting your own religion. Soto had a very practical positive impact in my life, zazen, that is. But I'm not attached to Soto or Rinzai or even Zen. It's a preference. I enjoy zazen. But honestly the zendo was a crazy place. I take issue with the separation of alignment and self realization. Self realization is loving your neighbor as yourself, truly. What you call self realization is what I call cracker jack awakening. Lots of it floating around. In other words if you're still an asshole after SR then you're fooling yourself. Bingo x Infinity. That cuts to the chase. (I didn't read this post until after my post, above, which was trying to be delicate, and leveraging, more, painting (Reefs) into a corner). This is short and sweet and to the point and heavy duty, bold. This is genuine, no BS, no context-shifting. Dogen was a very wise and profound dude, he'd eat Reefs alive. Dogen, no BS. His main question was, OK, you guys all say we already have Buddha-nature, so then, why practice? He found his answer. Enlightenment is practice, practice is enlightenment. I don't think he said anywhere that practice isn't necessary. You know Reefs.......(sdp awaiting reply from previous post). I just love: "You're starting your own religion".  .....but this piggybacks my post above. |
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Post by zendancer on Jun 20, 2023 8:33:55 GMT -5
But you do identify strongly with this soto nonsense, don't you? This is what I mentioned earlier. Integration is key. And you can't integrate your realizations when you are still struggling with basic psychological issues, when you go thru these on/off cycles that you don't seem to be able to control. That's why on the yoga path and in traditional advaita, the first order of business is to help students to leave their psychological hiccups behind so that they become balanced individuals. And only then they are slowly introduced to meditation and deeper truths. Nowadays people just jump right into meditation, have some insights, but still struggle with psychological baggage and the result is very unbalanced individuals. That's not freedom, that's still bondage. I guess I'll ask an unanswerable question, do you think you have any blind-spots? Seriously. .....There's something I don't get in the ND "paradigm". OTOH you (not just Reefs, a plural you), say there is no separate volitional person doing anything. And then here OToH you say "you can't integrate your realizations...", don't you see that's not resolvable? How can you suggest: "you don't seem to be able to control"? You can't have it both ways. What is it that makes "basic psychological issues" go away? What do you mean by you? This context business just doesn't do it for me, seems like a loophole. And you have it backwards, from my POV. The only process of change IS meditation. Every other attempt is just moving chairs on the Titanic. There's more I'd like to say, but to say more I'd like a reply on these. The problem is our conventional use of language. Let's say that a sage tells someone that meditation can be helpful and suggests that s/he do that. Who is speaking and who is listening? If there is only THIS (an undivided field of being), then THIS is talking to ITSELF while manifesting as two different human beings. The sage, knowing that there is only THIS, has no idea what THIS, in the form of another human, will do as a result of his/her pointer. This same sort of thing applies to anything that humans say to one another. This was the underlying point of Jesus' parable about the sower of seeds. Some seeds fall on fertile soil and sprout, and some seeds fall on rock and never sprout. The sower attempts to scatter seeds where it is likely that they will grow, but whether particular seeds will sprout is unknowable. The only thing the sage knows is that s/he must point to the truth in whatever way that s/he thinks is helpful. Sometimes a sage gives pointers that are effective, and sometimes not. Whatever happens is just the way that THIS unfolds. |
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Post by zendancer on Jun 20, 2023 8:56:19 GMT -5
I guess I'll ask an unanswerable question, do you think you have any blind-spots? Seriously. .....There's something I don't get in the ND "paradigm". OTOH you (not just Reefs, a plural you), say there is no separate volitional person doing anything. And then here OToH you say "you can't integrate your realizations...", don't you see that's not resolvable? How can you suggest: "you don't seem to be able to control"? You can't have it both ways. What is it that makes "basic psychological issues" go away? What do you mean by you? This context business just doesn't do it for me, seems like a loophole. And you have it backwards, from my POV. The only process of change IS meditation. Every other attempt is just moving chairs on the Titanic. There's more I'd like to say, but to say more I'd like a reply on these. The problem is our conventional use of language. Let's say that a sage tells someone that meditation can be helpful and suggests that s/he do that. Who is speaking and who is listening? If there is only THIS (an undivided field of being), then THIS is talking to ITSELF while manifesting as two different human beings. The sage, knowing that there is only THIS, has no idea what THIS, in the form of another human, will do as a result of his/her pointer. This same sort of thing applies to anything that humans say to one another. This was the underlying point of Jesus' parable about the sower of seeds. Some seeds fall on fertile soil and sprout, and some seeds fall on rock and never sprout. The sower attempts to scatter seeds where it is likely that they will grow, but whether particular seeds will sprout is unknowable. The only thing the sage knows is that s/he must point to the truth in whatever way that s/he thinks is helpful. Sometimes a sage gives pointers that are effective, and sometimes not. Whatever happens is just the way that THIS unfolds. As a followup note, whatever a sage says, or anyone else says for that matter, may or may not be applicable, effective, appropriate, or helpful to someone else. Whoever is speaking is simply speaking from the basis of what s/he understands and thinks about what's going on. Richard Rose, the founder of TAT, had all kinds of ideas and advice that he gave to students. From my POV some of it seemed pretty good and some of it seemed utterly nonsensical. Every human is a unique manifestation of THIS. |
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Post by figrebirth on Jun 20, 2023 10:39:23 GMT -5
Funny but contentment and achievement are both synonyms of fulfillment. I would put to you that graduating from this school of life is much more about fulfillment/contentment than fulfillment/achievement. Only because the latter implies effort. Now understand that practice to me does not necessarily suggest effort. Can one practice napping and does that require effort? You are right, practice does not necessarily mean effort. But it does imply a goal. And that's the actual issue here, it seems. You want to get from A to B. Because you believe B will be better than A. That's extrinsic motivation. You perform an action in order to achieve an objective, which you think will give you more pleasure. Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, would be performing the action for the sake of performing the action, because the action itself is the pleasure, the achievement is only an irrelevant byproduct. That is called flow experience, or play, or alignment. Nice explanation of "intrinsic motivation--performing an action for the sheer sake of the enjoyment of the action itself."
That sort of 'dancing through life,' becomes commonplace in SR/being awake and at the core of it all is the 'absence' of separation, absence of an SVP, absence of the buy in to causation/time/volition as existential Truth, all those unquestioned, erroneous assumptions that are in play prior to waking up.
Those who mistake LOA/deliberate creation as an actual answer to the misconceived question of; Why does stuff manifest in my experience as it does...why does it sometimes conform with my personal preference and sometimes not?...are 'trying' to get into and then, remain in alignment, not for the sheer sake of the present/imminent enjoyment of such, but rather, for the purpose of trying to ensure a future experience that conforms with personal desires for how it should be.
That there is really one of the main experiential differences between being awake/SR and not; Imminent experiential content when still asleep, is not in and of itself enough...there's always something lacking....something registering as not enough...could be better....something is wanting....present content/conditions are regarded as a mere catalyst to "better/improved/desired" future conditions.
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Post by figrebirth on Jun 20, 2023 10:46:36 GMT -5
But you do identify strongly with this soto nonsense, don't you? This is what I mentioned earlier. Integration is key. And you can't integrate your realizations when you are still struggling with basic psychological issues, when you go thru these on/off cycles that you don't seem to be able to control. That's why on the yoga path and in traditional advaita, the first order of business is to help students to leave their psychological hiccups behind so that they become balanced individuals. And only then they are slowly introduced to meditation and deeper truths. Nowadays people just jump right into meditation, have some insights, but still struggle with psychological baggage and the result is very unbalanced individuals. That's not freedom, that's still bondage. One hack to being more balanced is to know exactly where your extremes are, and not visit them so often. Undoubtedly, a self-help tool that many use to 'try to stay between the rails and outta the ditches.'
But in clarity, a deeper look at that reveals what's really going on; The very determination/assignation of "extreme" contains strong mind-based personal judgments about how life should be, and inherent in that, is an erroneously invoked separate, volitional person.
As experience goes when that SVP is in play, a judgment of certain behaviors/actions as "off limits," combined with an intent to avoid those, even in the face of a strong desire/want to go to those limits, is going to be rife with 'split-mind' and self deception.
Folks interested in self-help in that sense, would do much better simply inquiring into/working with the 'wants/desires/pull towards those limits, themselves as well as the judgments that say those pulls/playing around in those so called 'extremes' are 'bad.'
What's behind the 'pull/want' to play around in those extremes...and in the judgments re: those that even deem them to BE extremes that should be avoided?
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Post by zendancer on Jun 20, 2023 10:47:41 GMT -5
You are right, practice does not necessarily mean effort. But it does imply a goal. And that's the actual issue here, it seems. You want to get from A to B. Because you believe B will be better than A. That's extrinsic motivation. You perform an action in order to achieve an objective, which you think will give you more pleasure. Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, would be performing the action for the sake of performing the action, because the action itself is the pleasure, the achievement is only an irrelevant byproduct. That is called flow experience, or play, or alignment. Nice explanation of "intrinsic motivation--performing an action for the sheer sake of the enjoyment of the action itself."
That sort of 'dancing through life,' becomes commonplace in SR/being awake and at the core of it all is the 'absence' of separation, absence of an SVP, absence of the buy in to causation/time/volition as existential Truth, all those unquestioned, erroneous assumptions that are in play prior to waking up.
Those who mistake LOA/deliberate creation as an actual answer to the misconceived question of; Why does stuff manifest in my experience as it does...why does it sometimes conform with my personal preference and sometimes not?...are 'trying' to get into and then, remain in alignment, not for the sheer sake of the present/imminent enjoyment of such, but rather, for the purpose of trying to ensure a future experience that conforms with personal desires for how it should be.
That there is really one of the main experiential differences between being awake/SR and not; Imminent experiential content when still asleep, is not in and of itself enough...there's always something lacking....something registering as not enough...could be better....something is wanting....present content/conditions are regarded as a mere catalyst to "better/improved/desired" future conditions.
Totally agree. |
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Post by figrebirth on Jun 20, 2023 10:51:02 GMT -5
One hack to being more balanced is to know exactly where your extremes are, and not visit them so often. E' used to explain that to gopal as "clipping" .. but he never advised it, just described it.  Yup. There is the naturally unfolding shift in personal wants/interests that means proclivities/inclinations that were once in play are no longer and then there is the SVP who 'tries valiantly' to avoid the pull towards behaviors/actions he's judged to be 'dangerous.'
One is natural, the other, contrived.
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Post by ouroboros on Jun 20, 2023 11:21:58 GMT -5
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only part of 'no SVP' I agree with is the 'no S' part. The volitioning and the personing are entirely apparent. Yet even they, ultimately, are divine expression. But apparent nonetheless. Hence, from my pov the issue is not the limitation of language, but a lack of clarity. |
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Post by figrebirth on Jun 20, 2023 13:00:46 GMT -5
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only part of 'no SVP' I agree with is the 'no S' part. The volitioning and the personing are entirely apparent. Yet even they, ultimately, are divine expression. But apparent nonetheless. Hence, from my pov the issue is not the limitation of language, but a lack of clarity. Indeed, a me character/you character/person DOES appear. And choosing freely can be said to be a facet of experience, even in seeing through separation.
However, the very definition of "volition" (the power to make your own decisions) speaks to something deeper than relative, experiential content. It's the same with the word "causaulity/causation/creation." There's an inherent reference to "fundamental/actuality" in the very definition of those terms.
In order to have "actual" volition, there would have to be "actual" separation.
The realization of "One singular, undivided movement," illuminates 'actual' personal volition and causation as ultimately, illusive.
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Post by zendancer on Jun 20, 2023 13:01:16 GMT -5
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only part of 'no SVP' I agree with is the 'no S' part. The volitioning and the personing are entirely apparent. Yet even they, ultimately, are divine expression. But apparent nonetheless. Hence, from my pov the issue is not the limitation of language, but a lack of clarity. FWIW, most of us use the word "person" to refer to people lost in the concensus paradigm; we use the word "character" or "individual" or "Mind-body organism" to refer to humans who have seen through the illusion of selfhood. That's one reason that many sages refer to themselves as "this character" rather than "I" or "me." It feels more accurate and in alignment with what one has realized. Volition is an interesting subject. What are your thoughts about various scientific experiments that have shown that when there seems to be a choice between two options, the body acts BEFORE there is conscious awareness of the choice that the body has made? IOW, the sense of having made a choice comes AFTER the body has already begun responding to the issue at hand. As the Tao Te Ching puts it, "The sage does nothing, but everything gets done." From a sage's POV THIS, or the Unborn, is what does whatever is done. |
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Post by figrebirth on Jun 20, 2023 13:08:41 GMT -5
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only part of 'no SVP' I agree with is the 'no S' part. The volitioning and the personing are entirely apparent. Yet even they, ultimately, are divine expression. But apparent nonetheless. Hence, from my pov the issue is not the limitation of language, but a lack of clarity. FWIW, most of us use the word "person" to refer to people lost in the concensus paradigm; we use the word "character" or "individual" or "Mind-body organism" to refer to humans who have seen through the illusion of selfhood. That's one reason that many sages refer to themselves as "this character" rather than "I" or "me." It feels more accurate and in alignment with what one has realized. Volition is an interesting subject. What are your thoughts about various scientific experiments that have shown that when there seems to be a choice between two options, the body acts before there is conscious awareness of the choice that the body has made? IOW, the sense of having made a choice comes AFTER the body has already begun responding to the issue at hand. As the Tao Te Ching puts it, "The sage does nothing, but everything gets done." From a sage's POV THIS, or the Unborn, is what does whatever is done.That's a cool 'in the dream' facet that demonstrates the inherent wisdom of the body....body/intuitive responses that lie beyond intellect/overt, obvious minding/mental processes.
The firing of neurons/synapses (whatever) in the brain, is a physical phenomena. "One singular movement" points beyond ALL physical phenomena that that which is prior to/beyond.
The problem with using that scientific finding to try to make the point for Oneness/no separation is that is reifies the apparent body and brain processes as fundamentally "causal" to the experiential making of a choice. When really, those brain processes AND the sense of choosing are BOTH facets of experience.....neither has actual causal/catalyzing, "inherent power," over the ohter. Both are temporal expressions of the unchanging.
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Post by ouroboros on Jun 20, 2023 13:52:50 GMT -5
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only part of 'no SVP' I agree with is the 'no S' part. The volitioning and the personing are entirely apparent. Yet even they, ultimately, are divine expression. But apparent nonetheless. Hence, from my pov the issue is not the limitation of language, but a lack of clarity. Indeed, a me character/you character/person DOES appear. And choosing freely can be said to be a facet of experience, even in seeing through separation.
However, the very definition of "volition" (the power to make your own decisions) speaks to something deeper than relative, experiential content. It's the same with the word "causaulity/causation/creation." There's an inherent reference to "fundamental/actuality" in the very definition of those terms.
In order to have "actual" volition, there would have to be "actual" separation.
The realization of "One singular, undivided movement," illuminates 'actual' personal volition and causation as ultimately, illusive.
Apparently, that isn't the case. |
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Post by figrebirth on Jun 20, 2023 13:53:36 GMT -5
Indeed, a me character/you character/person DOES appear. And choosing freely can be said to be a facet of experience, even in seeing through separation.
However, the very definition of "volition" (the power to make your own decisions) speaks to something deeper than relative, experiential content. It's the same with the word "causaulity/causation/creation." There's an inherent reference to "fundamental/actuality" in the very definition of those terms.
In order to have "actual" volition, there would have to be "actual" separation.
The realization of "One singular, undivided movement," illuminates 'actual' personal volition and causation as ultimately, illusive.
Apparently, that isn't the case. How do you define "volition"? |
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Post by ouroboros on Jun 20, 2023 14:02:17 GMT -5
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only part of 'no SVP' I agree with is the 'no S' part. The volitioning and the personing are entirely apparent. Yet even they, ultimately, are divine expression. But apparent nonetheless. Hence, from my pov the issue is not the limitation of language, but a lack of clarity. FWIW, most of us use the word "person" to refer to people lost in the concensus paradigm; we use the word "character" or "individual" or "Mind-body organism" to refer to humans who have seen through the illusion of selfhood. That's one reason that many sages refer to themselves as "this character" rather than "I" or "me." It feels more accurate and in alignment with what one has realized. I don't have a problem with that. It's said that the Buddha referred to himself as the tathagata for similar reasons. I was using 'personing' in a similar sense to the individuated mind-body expression. No doubt that sort of 'autonomic' response is quite prevalent and likely accounts for the bulk of experientiality. However, just because choices are routinely being made on a subconscious level doesn't negate the fact that choices are being made. I guess we might conclude that differently. Additionally, such choice would be coloured by kamma, which may well encompass what we think of as genetic and biological predisposition, i.e innate behaviour. I consider variations in levels of apparent individuated consciousness to be a factor here too. What I mean is, someone who is generally 'being [more] conscious' than another may respond differently to the same stimuli, even subconsciously.
That said, there are also instances where informed conscious decisions/choices are being made after in depth consideration. And I'm not one who subscribes to this notion that things can only ever unfold one way. In either instance actually.
I rez with that Tao line but perhaps interpret it a bit differently. There is doing even though there is no doer per se. But that isn't to say there is an ultimate doer, such as THIS or the Unborn. |
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.....but this piggybacks my post above. 
