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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jan 27, 2016 - 12:38pm PT
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Thank you. This is the real Zen and certainly the real Buddhism, not the perverted samurai zen or the spiritual materialist zen of so much of the West
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 27, 2016 - 12:57pm PT
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Not true Jan.
He said: "absolute POV there is no I"
That is pure impersonalism.
The "I" is the personality of the living entity whether it is in illusion or free free from it.
It's a known fact that zen is an off shoot from Shankaracharya who preached the mayavadi and impersonalist philosophy.
He was told to do it on purpose but in the end he preached against that poor philosophy because he couldn't stand to mislead anymore.
He preached that philosophy because a certain class desires such nonsense.
Man proposes and God disposes.
Because ultimately even if it is false it will ultimately cause one to seek the real absolute truth eventually
since the living entity by its true nature is eternally part parcel .......
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jan 27, 2016 - 01:18pm PT
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Get back in the pond before a truck load of poor fund of knowledge mayavadi's (a derogatory term)run you over.
you are speculating Werner, zen doesn't address GOD one way or the other. It's direction is towards what is the root of suffering.
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 27, 2016 - 03:38pm PT
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zen doesn't address GOD one way or the other
Never said it does ......
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jan 27, 2016 - 04:47pm PT
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Unleashing the I-consciousness in its pure, unembodied state is a hugely transformative experience. It is the essence of the soul and without it one is placid moving meat; the perceived connection to everything may well be a distortion of reality.
But I am open to persuasion and am not locked into my view as most Zen pracitioners seem to be.
PSP provides a calm and measured description of Zen.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jan 27, 2016 - 06:23pm PT
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True and a difficult choice perhaps, since to say anything about Zen is not Zen-like.
PSP also PP does well.
I ask, though: when he starts a day is he thinking of what he needs or wants to get done, or is he thinking of what the Absolute POV would do?
: - )
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, California
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Jan 27, 2016 - 09:13pm PT
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Born under a Crucifying Mind
Born with bad religion
Where they treated some unkind
Then I came upon this website
And discovered 'What is Mind'
And found here more religion
Was accepted by some in kind
My atheistic views and a
Rebellious cynical mind
Which to me is all good
But putting that aside
Some philosophies here of course
Though no business of mine
Are fine
Taken with some salt
And a bit of an open mind
Oh yeah
Did I say mind?
Quibble amongst yourselves
Pay to this no mind
But be aware
'Cause put off by wrong religion
I thought instead to use my mind
Spiritual here some are
Yet bear in mind
Others seek true enlightenment
I thought instead I'd lost my mind
But found some sage advice
And also found
I thought instead to listen to
What's happening inside
Where bad ideas once ruled the roost
A job inside
Where...
You might find
A proclivity for contemplation
Curiously to find
Things that I find useful to the
Not so pious mind
-bushman
01/27/2016
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jan 28, 2016 - 08:42am PT
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Here the words and years drift drift down through the green haze to cover the bottom.
1991 - we must look for a home. The smell of kelp reminds us of childhood summers and we buy a house near the water. We have moved to Eagle Harbor beside Eagle Creek and Eagle Island. In the mornings I cross a bridge to Eagle Harbor Road and hike to Eagle Bluff.
1957 - at the Buffalo Museum of Science after a summer camp of bug and leaf identification, butter churning, and other lessons on man's place in nature, by the authority vested in Ellsworth Jaeger I am given a birch bark diploma and in a solemn ceremony under a strong sun receive my Indian name: Eagle Boy.
1969 - Dave Heitke, graduate student in math at Brown University, tells me that he has just read Anna Karenina and that it is wonderful. As years go by several other people say the same and I refresh the mental note, "read Anna Karenina."
2016 - I mention to a Russian friend that I plan to read Anna Karenina. The way the friend says, "It is beeeyootiful," finally makes me get to the library.
Anna Karenina:
The discussion was about a fashionable question: is there a borderline between psychological and physiological phenomena in human activity, and where does it lie?
Sergei Ivanovich: The fundamental concept of being itself is not received through the senses, for there exists no special organ for conveying that concept.
Sergei Koznyshev: … your consciousness of being comes from the totality of your sense impressions…
Levin: Therefore, if my senses are destroyed, if my body dies, there can be no further existence?
I blame the stars* and myself.
*the Sun in particular
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jan 28, 2016 - 09:58am PT
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 28, 2016 - 04:38pm PT
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PSP: That was very nice.
Jgill: :-) Nice notice. It’s that damned Word processing system. Pretty soon it will simply think for me. I’ll just put my finger on the keyboard, and things will happen all by themselves.
("Er. . . wait a minute.")
“Impersonalists” versus “non” is a false distinction, Mr. Duck. Depending upon where you come from and what path you take, one seems to come to both simultaneously. "Potato, Potatoe, . . . let’s call the whole thing off." (You know I love you, Werner.)
. . . is he thinking of what he needs or wants to get done, or is he thinking of what the Absolute POV would do?
Is the distinction useful to your understanding of what’s going on? What does it matter? No matter what, it’s what’s going on at the moment. In a manner of speaking, it’s always the absolute. It shows itself in every way. Thinking that things are this or that makes artificial things. The whole goddamned thing is spontaneous unfolding from apparently from some immense intelligence, and it is completely weird. THAT is it. There is no interpretation that make anyone understand that. There is no definition of IT. If you think there is, you haven’t f*cking seen it.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 28, 2016 - 04:42pm PT
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It’s the sense of wonder that seems to most "matter" [sic]. The rest . . . pffftttttt!
There seems to be no greater story than the story of one’s life from the inside. It’s the most fascinating thing to see experience. I move, I think, I feel, I seem to interact with things around me. It’s a 3-D (or more . . . “n-D” since many of you are mathematically inclined) movie with full-on interaction. I get involved in all sorts of dramas. And then I remember, . . . “oh, wait, . . . .“
Mundane living can be completely entertaining without doing anything. So many things happening all around me. It would be overwhelming if I were sane.
No wonder all of those monks and lamas are smiling and laughing all the time. It's complete absurdity.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 28, 2016 - 04:52pm PT
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All experience is like a dance and like the free play of sensual pleasure. There is no meditation and no meditator. If glitches arise they are immediately turned into a timeless moment of mental effort and become a door back into the space of the great perfection that actually can never be relinquished. . . . There are those who see the vision of The All Good clearly through this transmission but lose it thereafter. Through a verbal introduction, or some initiatory experience, they accept the vision as the apotheosis of human nature, and with subsequent intimation of the nature of mind they enjoy nonmeditation. But then immersed in the mundane concerns of life— profit and loss, love and hate, success and failure, fame and disgrace— they see the figments of their minds as personality isolates interacting in a concrete environment, and becoming attached to seemingly external phenomena the vision of “the all good" is lost. Fortuitously and inevitably, however, the vision and nonmeditation does return to mind, like the rising sun, and with increased familiarity and intimacy allows fearless, wholehearted surrender to the nature of mind. Pristine awareness then resumes its natural primacy. Confidence in nonaction is reaffirmed. Belief in mental constructs slackens. Fictive projections fade away. Through the temerity of recognition of the supreme source in whatever arises, in the bardo, natural perfection is recognized in a body of light. Then there are those who perceive the vision as through a glass darkly and, overruled by judgmental thought while reading or hearing the transmission, conceptualize it and analyze it and become susceptible to doubt. In a rationalistic process the vision is externalized and distanced and becomes a subtle and substantial goal to be achieved with a coincident sense of separation and inadequacy in the face of it. Samsara is divorced from nirvana in this process of linear thought through time, and caught on the horns of conflicting emotion we are susceptible to expectation and apprehension. “Our actions are determined by karma,” we say. “We are subject to karmic retribution. We are bound to the inevitable cycle of transmigration on the wheel of time.” “We have received The all good’s transmission and it has given us a glimpse of perfection for a moment. But we are left with only an intellectual understanding, and it has not affected our way of being.” “We live in a world of preferences and partiality, attachments and aversions, discrimination and judgment, hopes and fears.” “We are not ready,” we demur with a sense of our own inadequacy. “We are just beginners. We need to improve ourselves, to be good and virtuous, to control our energy patterns, to set goals and attain them, to climb the ladder of spiritual purity.” Riddled by such intellectual and emotional conflict, infected by hopes and fears, we conclude that something must be done, that remedial action is prescribed in order to attain the nondual state of the vision. Such readers may go on to devote their lives to a graduated path of endeavor, practicing some meditation technique or yoga, failing to adopt recognition of the perfection of their natural state. On the other hand, many hear the transmission and think about it, and lacking any initiatory experience they reject it and turn away. For them there never can be anything but the natural state of perfection, yet they live as beggars on the wheel of transmigration, believing that the material world is concrete and the states of mind in which they find themselves are real. Attached to the pleasant and averse to the painful, unknowingly they await the revelation of the nature of mind. So it is said.
(2013-07-22). Original Perfection: Vairotsana's Five Early Transmissions (Kindle Locations 336-343). Wisdom Publications. Kindle Edition.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Jan 28, 2016 - 06:08pm PT
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Information- as anything we are aware of and can be processed:
We are merely receptors.
The argument to, not analyze and judge, and deny what you were designed for, seems strange. Yet, if the process has led you to the conclusion that you are an observer, in the purist sense, then events and precondition has led you there, so fine (I still think you're judging, even if you claim otherwise).
Most, as designed, do analyze and judge, filter and process. It's the individual's response that reveals harmony, beauty, conflict and violence.
This is the human condition, it's survival and the helix of progression corkscrews wildly at times, yet steadily rises. Human history bears this out.
I'll take the controled chaos over a society of bald, asexual head nodders.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jan 28, 2016 - 06:08pm PT
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The whole goddamned thing is spontaneous unfolding from apparently from some immense intelligence, and it is completely weird. THAT is it.
I'll just rest down here on the bottom, letting the sediment slowly cover me.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jan 28, 2016 - 06:48pm PT
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JL's CarPool seems to have turned its attention elsewhere. Meditation on virtual particles might have been a distraction. It's boring around here without a bit of ectoplasm wafting about, despite MikeL's sustained and noble efforts to distribute our beings throughout the universe.
A discussion about multiple personalities might reveal more about the individual "I" that comes and goes as we chat. But this topic hasn't gained traction in the past.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jan 29, 2016 - 05:07pm PT
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"Can you still experience love, hate, or other feelings?
Honest question (the last one, that is)."
Moose
My experience has been you experience things more intensely; but, at the same time it is as if you are also witnessing it from a distance. You don't personalize the experience.
The word boring has come up a few times recently; what is boring ? What is the "I" that is bored?
Being bored often comes up when people are struggling with meditation ( not wanting to sit still (but you are there) like being on an aid belay.
Just another case of wanting things to be different than they are.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Jan 29, 2016 - 05:38pm PT
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A black Porsche?
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jan 29, 2016 - 06:39pm PT
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Moose: MikeL, you sound like you are completely detached from reality (well, my reality for sure). Living in you head all the time can fuk you up.
If “living in your head” is what you understood from my recent posts, then I have done a terrible job of communicating. It’s the exact opposite. Don’t you find that you can have feelings without thinking?
Can you still experience love, hate, or other feelings?
Sure. But I don’t take them concretely. They are like breezes. They come and go.
Look, as a practiced scientist, I should pay attention to empirical data, like the tactile feeling from a soft breeze, or the wafting sound of music from a faraway room, or the residue of the taste of a burnt coffee, or looking at the color of my beige bedroom wall. Thoughts are like that, too: I have them, but I can’t say what they are. If I were to say that all things are like that, would that makes me a lifeless non-human being in your view?
You know, I got into climbing because it got me out of my head in a elegantly beautiful way. Everything in climbing (routes within my reach of my capabilities) was pure feeling.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jan 29, 2016 - 07:20pm PT
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What is the "I" that is bored?
It is I, Grasshopper.
. . . you experience things more intensely; but, at the same time it is as if you are also witnessing it from a distance. You don't personalize the experience
The last time I was in severe pain this occurred. Undoubtedly my "I" retreating in the face of physical defeat.
It still hurt.
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