Showing posts with label Conventional. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conventional. Show all posts

https://www.facebook.com/cyberlogy/posts/pfbid02FMpR5drf4e4ANma6Q7zhKZkgzyReq7cus6sNXx6gWxzfBQr3Ko35iKJ9nU4VRjASl


Soh Wei Yu

14m  · 

Shared with Your friends

Friends

The Magical Hypnotic Spell of Convention

- [ ] 

- [ ] [18/12/15, 1:24:16 AM] Soh Wei Yu: It's like extending Anatta to everything.. When we see consciousness we see manifestation and release from subjectivity. When we see body we release from physicality and see dependencies and total exertion... When we see objects the same applies

- [ ] [18/12/15, 1:27:53 AM] John Tan: In anatta, u release the self.  In mind body drop, u release the body...in understanding conventions and emptiness, u realized there r the anatta and mind-body drops rest on the same principle...

- [ ] [18/12/15, 1:30:04 AM] John Tan: But what is important is u must see the immense power of conventions leading reification...the magic power that hypnotized u...how u feel when u r under the spell of conventions.

- [ ] [18/12/15, 1:38:26 AM] John Tan: U directly experience how the mind under the mind lives in spell ... U see how breaking through conventions and reification is different from non-conceptuality...that is not only experience becomes direct, non-dual, boundless and free, the center and background is also gone...which is unlike just being non-conceptual.  Almost non-dual awareness allows the pure sense of boundless presence, it cannot free one from the background.

- [ ] [18/12/15, 1:42:30 AM] John Tan: So when talking abt conventions, u must b able to point out how conventions has this special power that blinds and make our world feel so different ... Feel so solid and isolated and separated.

- [ ] [18/12/15, 1:43:13 AM] John Tan: U realized the "cause".

- [ ] [18/12/15, 1:50:58 AM] John Tan: If u cannot lead one to feel and see how "conventions" can make one feel  so "solid" and "real" in experience, then saying they r just conventions is not very helpful.


All reactions:1Yin Ling

1 comment

Like

Comment

Share

1 comment

Active

Soh Wei Yu

This is also why,

"The process of eradicating avidyā (ignorance) is conceived… not as a mere stopping of thought, but as the active realization of the opposite of what ignorance misconceives. Avidyā is not a mere absence of knowledge, but a specific misconception, and it must be removed by realization of its opposite. In this vein, Tsongkhapa says that one cannot get rid of the misconception of 'inherent existence' merely by stopping conceptuality any more than one can get rid of the idea that there is a demon in a darkened cave merely by trying not to think about it. Just as one must hold a lamp and see that there is no demon there, so the illumination of wisdom is needed to clear away the darkness of ignorance."

Napper, Elizabeth, 2003, p. 103"


2

Like

Reply13m



Write a comment…

Active


Also see:

 

 

 

 

    Ok enough of blahing for few weeks, this will be my last post😝.
    For those who conclude mmk denies causal efficacy,
    they have unknowingly fallen into the essentialist view of "true existence". Mmk only teaches if cause and effect exist essentially, then casuality is untenable and impossible.
    Therefore don't just say "ultimately causality, self and phenomena are empty" but deeply understand:
    In anatta, there is action without agent.
    In prasangika, action is performed by empty agent.
    As such "empty wars" kill, "empty self" suffers, empty self takes rebirth and only empty things have causal relations.
    That is y Nagasena can be ferried by an "empty chariot"😝.
    Hence, don't neglect the imagined and experience the wonderment of seeing emptiness of the conventional.
    An early Happy New Year to all and happy journey to all my dharma friends!

    2 Comments


    William Lim
    Nice blahing!
    More empty blahing in the new year please.
    1

    • Reply
    • 58m
    • Edited

  • Yin Ling
    So good. Why is the last post 🥲
    1

  • Reply
  • 20m

 

    Geovani Geo
    Starting from where the 'usual' man stands: All things are mind. There is not s single event/thing/no-thing that is not in the mind brought in by the senses. So, what are 'things, 'distance', 'weight' or 'mass'? Nothing but a breeze, a hazy appearance, a dream. Nothing. And, what is 'mind' and 'senses'? Likewise, nothing. When the mind is nothing, everything is nothing, beyond 'is' or 'is not'.
    "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
    To the last syllable of recorded time;
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
    And then is heard no more. It is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing."
    ~ Shakespeare ~


  • Geovani Geo
    And:
    “At no time throughout the beginningless succession of lifetimes has there ever been an actual birth. There has only been the appearance of birth. There has never been actual death, only the transformation of appearances like the shift from the dream state to the waking state . . . throughout the beginningless succession of lifetimes there has never been any actual experience of transition or going from one state to another, or any actual experience of being located in some other place. This is analogous to the images in a dream.”
    ~ Longchenpa


    John Tan
    Geovani Geo there is no need to worry about birth and death ultimately but that is quite useless if we do not know about the conventional that we r trapped. Even empty words sets the mind spinning and emotional obturations in motion.
    We thought all along only truly existence things can initiate action and this is misknowledge and confusion; rather it is empty phenomena that r imaginary and non-existence entities setting things in motion. It is this imaginary entity that is experiencing karma and that is how the karma works and as long as we r not Buddha, it will continue endlessly. For the benefit of u as a sincere practitioner😝. Anyway I will be away for quite some time. Enjoy the ride and happy new year.


  • John Tan
    Geovani Geo what u quoted must go hand in hand with this:
    Longchenpa on Nihilism
    From Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind.
    Those who scorn the law of karmic cause and fruit
    Are students of the nihilist view outside the Dharma.
    They rely on the thought that all is void;
    They fall in the extreme of nothingness
    And go from higher to lower states.
    They have embarked on an evil path
    And from the evil destinies will have no freedom,
    Casting happy states of being far away.
    ”The law of karmic cause and fruit,
    Compassion and the gathering of merit -
    All this is but provisional teaching fit for children:
    Enlightenment will not be gained thereby.
    Great yogis should remain without intentional action.
    They should meditate upon reality that is like space.
    Such is the definitive instruction.”
    The view of those who speak like this
    Of all views is the most nihilist:
    They have embraced the lowest of all paths.
    How strange is this!
    They want a fruit but have annulled its cause.
    If reality is but a space-like void,
    What need is there to meditate?
    And if it is not so, then even if one meditates
    Such efforts are to no avail.
    If meditation on mere voidness leads to liberation,
    Even those with minds completely blank
    Attain enlightenment!
    But since those people have asserted meditation,
    Cause and its result they thus establish!
    Throw far away such faulty paths as these!
    The true, authentic path asserts
    The arising in dependence of both cause and fruit,
    The natural union of skillful means and wisdom.
    Through the causality of nonexistent but appearing acts,
    Through meditation on the nonexistent but appearing path,
    The fruit is gained, appearing and yet nonexistent;
    And for the sake of nonexistent but appearing beings,
    Enlightened acts, appearing and yet nonexistent, manifest.
    Such is pure causality’s profound interdependence.
    This is the essential pith
    Of all the Sutra texts whose meaning is definitive
    And indeed of all the tantras.
    Through the joining of the two accumulations,
    The generation and completion stages,
    Perfect buddhahood is swiftly gained.
    Thus all the causal processes
    Whereby samsara is contrived should be abandoned,
    And all acts that are the cause of liberation
    Should be earnestly performed.
    High position in samsara
    And the final excellence of buddhahood
    Will speedily be gained.
    - Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind (vol 1)


  • Geovani Geo
    John, yes, the whole story of movement and volition is in the imaginary realm. We where used to look at 'things' and 'events' as if outside, mistake which is the triggering of samsara. Things and events have no basis, no ground. How funny: if we touch the empty lucid factor that leads to the equalness of all appearances, we are unable to find such factor.


  • Geovani Geo
    "The fruit is gained, appearing and yet nonexistent;
    And for the sake of nonexistent but appearing beings,
    Enlightened acts, appearing and yet nonexistent, manifest."


  • John Tan
    Geovani Geo yes therefore understanding imagined non-existence things having no basis and no ground is not yet even half the journey. For authenticatic path and right understanding and "speedily be gained" as longchenpa said, read the text above by him line by line otherwise one falls into nihilism.

  • Reply
  • 15w
  • Edited

John Tan: I think u have read enough of books and u already have the books needed to refine your understandings post anatta. 

From anatta-->deconstruction of both mind and phenomena into empty appearances as one's radiance clarity-->freedom from all elaborations (mmk)-->spontaneous presence

What u lack is the nuances of anatta in actual experience that is difficult to tell as the energy system differs for each person and can only be known by that individual when he tasted it.  Otherwise u just actualize through the 6 parimatas.

Find out what diet combinations help u detox so that your inner organs become healthy and less inflammatory + deep restful sleep.  U have to understand what is most crucial is the evenness of non-dual at the moment of sleep and the moment…

Soh: Oic..
[12:20 pm, 28/12/2021] John Tan: When u say "Cause and effect are empty but not a rejection of dependent origination", do u know what it means? (Soh: from Don't Neglect the Conventional)
[8:48 pm, 28/12/2021] John Tan: Y do u like to cut and put our conversations in other forums for what?
[8:48 pm, 28/12/2021] John Tan: A simple answer just answer Ur own

Soh: Oic..
Cause and effect are empty doesnt mean they are nonexistent
But they are dependent designations.. like father and son (Soh: see Relationship Between Father and Son and Dzogchen: Beyond Cause and Effect). So it is not inherent cause and inherent production. Like chariot and parts are also dependent designations.. awareness and object of awareness.. and so on. In freedom from proliferation, awareness and object of awareness, cause and effect are all emptied into nondual suchness.. but in terms of relative they are expressed as dependent designations. Father and son, consciousness and object of consciousness and so on are neither same nor different, merely dependently designated and empty
In terms of relative the seeing of dependent designation also allows penetrating into total exertion
Freedom from proliferation is more like -A

John Tan: Yes also Like cup or self, although these r conceptual notions however they have conventional validity.  There is no "cup" or "self" are empty and non-arisen, but there r conventional validity in that there is a functioning purpose.  Cause and effect serves their purpose this way linking the conventions.

Soh: Oic.. like that time malcolm mentioned,

Malcolm wrote: ↑Wed Oct 27, 2021 4:09 am
Well, actually the I-making habit, the basic knowledge obscuration, has no real existence as a self, but it functions as an agent of karma and a recipient of karma, so there is that, even though the "I" it imputes does not exist at all.


...

No, it is an imagined, nonexistent self that causes and experiences everything, for example, when a car is in accident, it is the imagined car for which one pays the damages, not the wrong view of the imagined car. But perhaps this is a special point of Candrakīrti's Madhyamaka, unlikely to be found the Visuddhimagga.

[10:27 pm, 28/12/2021] John Tan: Lol yeah
[10:28 pm, 28/12/2021] John Tan: When we neglect all these, we become nihilistic.
[10:29 pm, 28/12/2021] John Tan: What the non prasangika don't understand is they thought there must be real referent in order to have causal efficacy.
Soh: Ic..
[10:31 pm, 28/12/2021] John Tan: Even in objective science, gravity explains perfectly the man-size John Tan: Newtonian world but there is no "gravity" as a force pulling any object as explained in relativity.
[10:33 pm, 28/12/2021] John Tan: Like fiat money is empty but moves the world.
Soh: Oic..
John Tan: And it is precisely that because the conventional r empty of any essential nature, such causal relationships r possible, inherent and truly existing things can't.

 

For non-dual junkies:
If u neglect the conventional, don't talk about the ultimate.
For the ultimate is merely the emptiness of the conventional.
If u neglect "body", don't talk about "mind".
For "body" and "mind" are merely distinct conventionally,
Ultimately they lack sameness or difference.
🤦

37 Comments


Tan Jui Horng
Neglect the body and your qi and the universe expresses itself as chaos.
2
  • Reply
  • 1d

John Tan
Tan Jui Horng 气之最,谓之神。The subtlest of Qi, is called "consciousness".
2
Yin Ling
Tan Jui Horng really true. I’m very sensitive to Qi, body energy. I always hate it because I couldn’t practise when it’s out of balance, it’s really uncomfortable, even suffering. but now I see the blessings of it. It’s like a warning signal.
I say all this and I am solidly trained in western medicine. 🤣🤣🤣
Tan Jui Horng
Qi affects mind... mind affects qi... I think eventually western medicine will figure this part out, just like how science is figuring out what the sages have been saying and doing.
    • Reply
    • 1d
Anurag Jain
The "non dual junkies" may still be aware of a truth that still seems to be escaping you, even if it is a conceptual knowledge for them.
And the truth is that all phenomena are enlightened every moment. All phenomena are empty and luminous appearances. And this truth is never "in balance" or "out of balance".
Anurag Jain
"Ultimately body and mind lack sameness and difference"
So what about your "subtlest of Qi or Consciousness"? Is it a different animal? 🙂
Soh Wei Yu
Quotes from AtR Guide:
“Sitting idly waiting for my next meeting, I wrote this poem to past time 😛 :
真实的财富, 只是身心健康。
执于修心而轻修身, 是大病。
见身本无身时, 身体也是心。
见心无心, 迟钝笨拙也是禅。
生老病死梦一场, 不要执着。
舍弃多余的有无, 傲游无境。
True wealth is the healthiness of one's body-mind.
Over attached in mind practices and neglect body is big disease.
When we realized body is empty of body, body is also mind.
When we realized mind is no-mind, even clumsiness is zen.
Birth, old age, sickness and death is but a dream, do not be attached.
Give up whatever that is "extra" (of something and nothing), And roam freely in the territory of no-dimension.
🤣🤣🤣!” – John Tan, 2020
Exercise, Diet, Sleep
Soh Wei Yu
Admin
· iSpongic2aag070fh1d ·
Tommy McNally:
““I was a fucking mess for years. Last October, I made the decision to change that once and for all: I quit smoking cigarettes, quit SSRI's, and started getting up at 0500, exercising, and eating cleaner.
On the 26th of July this year, I started going to the gym for weightlifting and cardio. Yesterday was my 100th session.
The difference that exercise, a better diet and a consistent, non-negotiable routine makes - physically, mentally and spiritually - cannot be overstated.
I've never mentioned any of this publicly and I'm not posting this for kudos. I'm posting this because if I can do it, then so can you.”
[5:55 pm, 11/12/2021] John Tan: This is extremely important. In fact you should encourage ATR group to do that.
[6:02 pm, 11/12/2021] John Tan: Instead of just always talking about ultimate, anatta.🤦‍♂️.
4 Comments
Данила Игнатовски
Totally agree. Ive been involved in calisthenics, workout and yoga for a 5-6 years for now and it gives A LOT to my calmness and much decrease pain in the mindass after some intensive practice. Push ups and something like this is great for home everyday practice if you dont like gyms.
2
“Prana (Soh: energy, life, breath, or chi) and the apparent body, they are not related to mind, they are mind. Opening and regulating the apparent
body, is opening and regulating the mind.
Was very much inspired by some truly profound and insightful texts (Soh: a Dzogchen text) about vayu, body and mind that Kyle Dixon sent me a few weeks ago. 🙂
- John Tan, 2018
“Body is Mind
What we called "body" is just "Mind".
Massaging the body, is massaging Mind.
Detoxing the body, is cleansing Mind.
Feeling the breath, is feeling Mind.
Integrate the body fully in practice,
For the body has always been what we called - "Mind".”
- John Tan, 2019
What is most important is how you can understand deeply the energy circulatory of your body and how it helps to expand and open our pristine consciousness… ...Body is a whole universe of itself. It cannot be just knowledge, it has to be intimate to the very depth. Intimate to [the] depth that you can feel no distinction between body and consciousness.
- John Tan, 2019
"In Vajrayāna, cakras are areas in the body where the venous, arterial and nerves collect, generally around vital organs. Where these channels [nadis] converge are areas where the vāyu becomes more concentrated.
The point of a knowledge of where nadi and vāyu collects is related to a knowledge of how to manipulate the body to in turn control the mind. The mind or consciousness, rides the vāyu. And actually in some systems, mind [citta] and vāyu are held to be synonymous, no difference at all. If vāyu is coordinated then the mind will be calm and pliable, alternatively if the vāyu is agitated then the mind will be chaotic with lots of concepts and thoughts.
Vajrayāna has a strong emphasis on the body for this very reason, and cakras are one aspect of the yogic understanding of physiology.
The ability to control the body and in turn the mind in this way means a practitioner of Vajrayāna can establish states of dhyāna and samādhi much more rapidly than systems that only employ methods like samatha solely to enter dhyāna." - Kyle Dixon, 2021
“Tibetan Buddhists practice tsa lung or trul khor which is pranayama, sometimes called “yantra yoga.” These Tibetan and Indian physical yogas are the basis for what later became hatha yoga and so on.
In Vajrayāna, the premise is that the mind or consciousness is inseparable from the vāyu, which is the air element within the body. The vāyus circulate throughout the body via the nadis or channels. As such, through postures and breathing methods, you control the nadis and the vāyu, and once the vāyu is coordinated, then the mind becomes calm and pliable.
Some Buddhist systems emphasize sitting meditation, and as a result, eventually access dhyāna and samādhi. In Vajrayāna, through applying pranayama, that same dhyāna and samādhi is accessed much more rapidly.
In this way, these physical yogas as applied through the lens of the buddhadharma become a vehicle to awakening just the same as other meditation techniques, and when coupled with other meditation techniques, these physical yogas are a powerful supplement and method which greatly enhance one’s path and practice.
There should be absolutely no conflict. If the conflict is based in doctrine, then study the Buddhist view and understand what you are doing... the premise isn’t different. The point of departure is the nuances of the soteriological frameworks as u/animuseternal noted. In practice however, you are going to end up accomplishing the same result, the coordination of vāyu and mind.” – Kyle Dixon, 2021
“[3/12/15, 9:03:06 PM] John Tan: Actually when you practice yoga, if you got the 慧根 (faculty of wisdom)... you will realise the purpose of the asanas to prepare the body to fully open up itself. It is quite ironical because you practice to be natural, tender and flexible...but if you practice, you will realise. The body is tense, rigid and it can't relax and open up itself...it is similar to a mind full of proliferated views and dualistic tendencies going through the 7 phases of insights to open up.”
You can't truly open your mind without opening your body. When the insights open the eye that enable you to experience directly, you must be able to directly feel and experience the supporting conditions that help to lead one to openness. And the body also requires certain mind state to complement your body to open up... your breath and posture and mind... All contribute and play a role... Have you felt your body so clean, cleansed, unobstructed and pure before?
- John Tan, 2019
Soh Wei Yu
“When the [ultimate] truth is explained as it is, the conventional is not obstructed; Independent of the conventional no [ultimate] truth can be found."
- Bodhicittavivaraṇa
“Queequeg:
I'm not sure cause and effect as you have in mind applies to the view explained through ichinen sanzen. "Since suffering and its causes do not exist..." I don't think its any sort of conventional view. As I understand, its the view taught in, for instance, the Heart Sutra:
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no end to suffering, no path to follow.
Malcolm:
Which actually means:
There is suffering, a cause of suffering, an end to suffering, a path to follow.
Why? "Matter is empty, emptiness is matter; apart from matter there is no emptiness; apart from emptiness there is no matter, the same for sensation. perception, formation, and consciousness."
The Heart Sūtra is merely saying there is no inherent suffering, cause, end, or path, and that the two truths, samsara and nirvana, etc., are inseparable.”
“The ultimate truth is that neither you, the child, nor the candy exist inherently. As QQ pointed out, whatever is dependently originated, that is empty and dependently designated. The two truths are inseparable” – Acarya Malcolm, 2021
" Thorough knowledge of relative truth is ultimate truth; for this reason the two truths are mutually confirming and not in contradiction at all." – Acarya Malcolm, 2021
“EMPTINESS DEVIATING TO THE BASIC NATURE
Timeless Deviation to the Nature of Knowables The meditation of inseparable phenomena and emptiness is called “emptiness endowed with the supreme aspect.” Not knowing how emptiness and interdependence abide in nonduality, you decide that emptiness is a nothingness that has never existed and that is not influenced at all by qualities or defects. Then you underestimate the cause and effect of virtue and vice, or else lapse exclusively into the nature of all things being originally pure, primordially free, and so forth. Bearing such emptiness, the relative level of interdependence is not mastered. In this respect, this is what is known as mahamudra: one’s basic nature is unoriginated and, since it is neither existent nor nonexistent, eternal nor nil, true nor false, nor any other such aspects, it has no existence whatsoever. Nonetheless, its unceasing radiance arises as the relative level of all kinds of interdependence, so it is known as emptiness having the core of interdependence and interdependence having the nature of emptiness. Therefore, emptiness does not stray to the nature of knowables. In the Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way it is said: Anything that doesn’t arise dependently Is a phenomenon that has no existence. Therefore anything that is not empty Is a phenomenon that has no existence. And as said in the Commentary on Bodhichitta: It is taught that the relative plane is emptiness, And emptiness alone is the relative plane.” – The Royal Seal of Mahamudra, Volume 2, Khamtrul Rinpoche
“A lot of talk on here lately about how lame relative reality is vs how awesome ultimate reality is.
Apparently an omniscient master is supposed to see how both the relative and the ultimate exist at the same time in a Union of Appearance and Emptiness.
It's because everything is dependently arisen that it can be seen as empty.
Not even the smallest speck exists by its own power.
Je Tsongkhapa said, "Since objects do not exist through their own nature, they are established as existing through the force of convention."
He was the biggest proponent of keeping vows and virtuous actions through all stages of sutra and tantra.
He also leveraged the relative by practicing millions of prostrations and offering mandalas.
He also practiced generation and completion stages of tantra while keeping his conduct spotless.
He held conduct in the highest regard in all of his texts on tantra such as his masterwork, A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages.” - Jason Parker, 2019
“The Danger of Refuting Too Much: Ethics and Emptiness
"Tsong- kha- pa was particularly concerned that most of the then prevailing Tibetan interpretations of Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka philosophy misidentified the object of negation. In his view, these widely promulgated misunderstandings of Madhyamaka subvert ethical commitments by treating them—and all other conventions—as provisional in the sense that their validity or legitimacy is obviated by the profound truth of emptiness. Tsong- kha- pa holds that profound emptiness must be understood as complementing and fulfilling, rather than canceling out, the principles of moral action. His writings aim to inspire and—as a matter of historical fact—did inspire vigorous striving in active virtue.
Tsong- kha- pa insists that rational analysis is an indispensable tool in the spiritual life. In order to make cogent the compatibility of emptiness and ethics, Tsong- kha- pa had to show that the two truths, ultimate and conventional, do not contradict, undermine, or supersede one another."
~ Introduction to Emptiness, Guy Newland”
“The birth of certainty ~ Lama Tsongkhapa
The knowledge that appearances arise unfailingly in dependence,
And the knowledge that they are empty and beyond all assertions—
As long as these two appear to you as separate,
There can be no realization of the Buddha’s wisdom.
Yet when they arise at once, not each in turn but both together,
Then through merely seeing unfailing dependent origination
Certainty is born, and all modes of misapprehension fall apart—
That is when discernment of the view has reached perfection.
– Lama Tsongkhapa
The birth of certainty ~ Lama Tsongkhapa
QUOTES.JUSTDHARMA.COM
The birth of certainty ~ Lama Tsongkhapa
The birth of certainty ~ Lama Tsongkhapa
Soh Wei Yu
“John TanMonday, May 12, 2014 at 6:06pm UTC+08
You are escaping into non-arising and emptiness of "no neck and no pain", trapped in the view of non-conceptual clarity also. What is the purpose of seeing the emptiness of "pain"? To ignore and rest in non-conceptual clarity? "Pain" does not arise?
...
John TanMonday, May 12, 2014 at 6:11pm UTC+08
Buddha is telling you how to release suffering, free from birth by right understanding. Not telling you to be confused and not know what to do. He sees DO and know what causes re-birth and taught DO, anatta to free us from sufferings. The purpose of telling you there is no pain in the neck so that you don't apply wrong medicine to the pain! It is not in the neck for example. So you are not trapped! Don't keep thinking it is just the neck get it? So that you can "see" clearly the causes and conditions of this empty "pain" in the neck. Otherwise you are not curing the "pain in the neck" because there is no so called inherent "pain" in the neck… You keep pressing and poking the neck cause more problems...lol. Wrong way, wrong understanding, wrong medicine! Get it? Like a person suffered from slipped disc and the big toe always feel numb and pain, the "pain in the toe" is empty, this is not to say there is "no pain", but to tell you DO...so you can correctly see and realize the exact causes and conditions and understand that it is from the disc protrusion that touches the spinal cord. So you can "cure" it …
Soh Wei YuMonday, May 12, 2014 at 6:30pm UTC+08
ic.. so its like seeing four nobles truths.. suffering, cause, cessation and path
John TanMonday, May 12, 2014 at 6:30pm UTC+08
Yes. Every sensation, experience, mental object, event...whatever appears to arise is so. Now if I go to the doctor and he gives me muscle relaxant and it cures for a while and come back again...what is it telling me?
Soh Wei YuMonday, May 12, 2014 at 6:44pm UTC+08
the root cause is not removed?
John TanMonday, May 12, 2014 at 6:45pm UTC+08
Yes...assuming you learn by trail and error...by experimentation ... You start pressing the neck and press until it swollen...lol...it is not working. Then you go to the doctor it gives you muscle relaxant, it cures and comes back and you visit a Chinese doctor, it gives you medicine that you purge the "heaty" stuff...and it cures and then it comes back again... You begin to know more and more of the dependencies… Until you are able to link and see the stress that associates with the "pain"...the mental factors… When that attachment to projects, the success and failure, the mental attitude of total acceptance and release...and the pain is gone… You begin to understand deeper… The projects, the mental attitudes, the stress, the medicine, the energy imbalances...how they exert into this arising. Then the mental attitude of acceptance of the pain of the raw sensations and the mental attitude of full acceptance of success and failure of the projects… And the pain in the neck...all the karmic activities. When I visited my Chinese doctor, I told him about my neck pain...he was telling me not to earn so much of "$$$"...lol. He was not just joking...but he sees "the link" in a very practical sense. Total exertion of DO is not to make us more dumb...lol. From top to bottom, there is no self, just these activities.”
Anurag Jain
Soh Wei Yu it seemed you were "trapped" in non-doing.
Anurag Jain
Soh Wei Yu emptiness only shows that there is no objectively existent doer. And all doing is happening. It is quite well known by those who truly understand emptiness that the doer is accepted for conventional discourse.
Soh Wei Yu
No, not non-doing. Failure to clearly discern dependent origination.
May
07
Ultimate and Relative
"If asked what I am most drawn to (in Tsongkhapa's teachings), I am most drawn to Prasangika's "mere imputation". The quintessence of "mere imputation" is IMO the essence of Buddhism. It is the whole of 2 truths; the whole of 2 folds. How the masters present and how it is being taught is entirely another matter. It is because in non-conceptuality, the whole of the structure of "mere imputation" is totally exerted into an instantaneous appearance that we r unable to see the truth of it. In conceptuality, it is expanded and realized to be in that structure. A structure that awakens us the living truth of emptiness and dependent arising that is difficult to see in dimensionless appearance."
"In ultimate (empty dimensionless appearance), there is no trace of causes and conditions, just a single sphere of suchness. In relative, there is dependent arising. Therefore distinct in relative when expressed conventionally but seamlessly non-dual in ultimate."
"When suchness is expressed relatively, it is dependent arising. Dependent designation in addition to causal dependency is to bring out a deeper aspect when one sees thoroughly that if phenomena is profoundly without essence then it is always only dependent designations."
- Thusness, 2015
Anurag Jain
There is no "origination" if there is no cause and effect ultimately.
Anurag Jain
Origination and arising of what? Entities?
Anurag Jain
The DO is a provisional theory. Ultimately reality is indescribable and inexplicable and inconceivable. To bring you to this understanding or non-understanding is the whole purpose of Nagarjuna and not to land on any theory of ultimate reality.
Soh Wei Yu
[10:10 PM, 4/12/2021] John Tan: The DO part is really good.
[10:11 PM, 4/12/2021] John Tan: When did malcom say that? Recently or in the past?
[10:11 PM, 4/12/2021] Soh Wei Yu: oic..
[10:11 PM, 4/12/2021] Soh Wei Yu: from above
[10:12 PM, 4/12/2021] Soh Wei Yu: the others from here https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=36283...
[10:30 PM, 4/12/2021] John Tan: Many misunderstand that oh ultimately it is empty and DO is conventional therefore conceptual so ultimately empty non-existence.
We must understand what is meant by empty ultimately but conventionally valid. Nominal constructs are of two types, those that are valid and those that r invalid like "rabbit horns". Even mere appearances free from all elaborations and conceptualities, they inadvertently manifest therefore the term "appearances". They do not manifest randomly or haphazardly, they are valid mode of arising and that is dependent arising. When it is "valid" means it is the acceptable way of explanation and not "rabbit horn" which is non-existence. This part I mentioned in my reply to Andre.
[10:36 PM, 4/12/2021] John Tan: Do you get what I meant?
What it means is there is still a "right" or "acceptable" or "valid" way to express it conventionally. Take freedom from all elaborations for example, it doesn't mean "blankness" or "anything goes". There is right understanding of "freedom from all elaborations" that is why Mipham has to qualify that it is not "blankness", it does not reject "mere appearance", it must be understood from the perspective of "coalescence"...and so on and so forth. Similarly, there is right understanding of "arising" conventionally and that is DO.
So when we clearly see how essence = true existence = independence of causes and conditions are untenable for anything to arise, we see dependent arising.
Anurag Jain
Emptiness is not non-existence. It is inconceivable, which means free of the four extremes.
Soh Wei Yu
"There is no "origination" if there is no cause and effect ultimately."
Nagarjuna:
What arises in dependence is not born;
That is proclaimed by the supreme knower of reality 😊 Buddha).
Candrakirti:
(The realist opponent says): If (as you say) whatever thing arises in dependence is not even born, then why does (the Madhyamika) say it is not born? But if you (Madhyamika) have a reason for saying (this thing) is not born, then you should not say it "arises in dependence." Therefore, because of mutual inconsistency, (what you have said) is not valid.)
(The Madhyamika replies with compassionate interjection:)
Alas! Because you are without ears or heart you have thrown a challenge that is severe on us! When we say that anything arising in dependence, in the manner of a reflected image, does not arise by reason of self-existence - at that time where is the possibility of disputing (us)!” - excerpt from Calming the Mind and Discerning the Real: Buddhist Meditation and the Middle View
Anurag Jain
Soh Wei Yu what is born and what arises?
Soh Wei Yu
[10:05 PM, 4/12/2021] Soh Wei Yu: malcolm (Acarya Malcolm Smith):
MMK refutes any kind of production other than dependent origination. It is through dependent origination that emptiness is correctly discerned. Without the view of dependent origination, emptiness cannot be correctly perceived, let alone realized. The MMK rejects production from self, other, both, and causeless production, but not dependent origination. The MMK also praises the teaching of dependent origination as the pacifier of proliferation in the mangalam. The last chapter of MMK is on dependent origination. The MMK nowhere rejects dependent origination, it is in fact a defense of the proper way to understand it. The only way to the ultimate truth (emptiness) is through the relative truth (dependent origination), so if one’s understanding of relative truth is flawed, as is the case with all traditions outside of Buddhadharma, and even many within it, there is no possibility that ultimate truth can be understood and realized.
...
Anurag Jain
Lol. Answer my question Soh Wei Yu What arises? I know DO
Soh Wei Yu
Anything. Four noble truths for example, suffering, cause of suffering, end of suffering, path to end suffering.
Emptiness is what allows functioning of dependent origination and four noble truths and the soteriological function of the path, so nothing is denied at all, in fact emptiness affirms dependent origination or is what makes everything possible. If this is not clear then one falls into false views or nihilism.
Excerpt:
Nagarjuna responds to this assumption by reversing the tables and saying, in effect, that it is not "emptiness" that destroys practice, but the very idea that such things as causality, the aggregates, and the Four Noble Truths are "inherent," essential, or necessary:
If you perceive the existence of all things
In terms of svabhava,
Then this perception of all things
Will be without the perception of causes and conditions.
Effects and causes
And agent and action
And conditions and arising and ceasing
And effects will be rendered impossible.
(Garfield 1995, p.69)
p.572
Nagarjuna goes on to say that the reason essences militate against causal conditions, arising, ceasing, agency, and so forth is that the idea of essence entails independence, and if things are by nature independent then it is impossible for them to interact causally. If this is true then there is no "dependent arising," and without "dependent arising" it is impossible to make sense of the ability to cultivate a virtuous life. In other words, without the process of change the whole idea of cultivating the "fruits" of a Buddhist life is rendered nonsensical. Nagarjuna responds by saying that Buddhist praxis must be "empty" if we are to make any sense of the Four Noble Truths:
If dependent arising is denied,
Emptiness itself is rejected.
This would contradict
All of the worldly conventions.
If emptiness is rejected,
No action will be appropriate.
There would be action which did not begin,
And there would be agent without action.
If there is svabhava, the whole world
Will be unarising, unceasing,
And static. The entire phenomenal world
Would be immutable.
If it (the world) were not empty,
Then action would be without profit.
The act of ending suffering and
Abandoning misery and defilement would not exist.
(Garfield 1995, p.72)
How Experiential Realization Helps in Liberation
AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
How Experiential Realization Helps in Liberation
How Experiential Realization Helps in Liberation
Anurag Jain
This "any thing" arises from what?
Anurag Jain
Neither am I denying anything 🙂
Anurag Jain
Except that there is ultimately any cause-effect. I am sure this is ultimately denied in MMK too.
Soh Wei Yu
Malcolm: "MMK refutes any kind of production other than dependent origination.... ...The MMK rejects production from self, other, both, and causeless production, but not dependent origination. The MMK also praises the teaching of dependent origination as the pacifier of proliferation in the mangalam. The last chapter of MMK is on dependent origination. The MMK nowhere rejects dependent origination, it is in fact a defense of the proper way to understand it...."
Anurag Jain
Still not answering my question Soh Wei Yu
Soh Wei Yu
Cause and effect are empty but not a rejection of dependent origination:
Soh Wei Yu
"Something is not a cause in and of itself; it is named a “cause” in relation to its effect. Here the effect does not occur before its cause, and its cause does not come into being after its effect; it is in thinking of its future effect that we designate something as a cause. This is dependent-arising in the sense of dependent designation." - H.H Dalai Lama
"But when you take it further, the dependent-arising of cause and effect comes because of dependent designation, which itself indicates that cause and effect do not have their own being; if they did have their own being, they would not have to be dependently designated." - H.H Dalai Lama
Two-Way Dependency/Dependent Designation
AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
Two-Way Dependency/Dependent Designation
Two-Way Dependency/Dependent Designation
Anurag Jain
All practices are happening only to end proliferation.
Anurag Jain
The Dalai Lama quote is not denying cause and effect. It is a provisional teaching.
Anurag Jain
And I think he puts DO well 🙂
Anurag Jain
And by the way Soh Wei Yu Emptiness is also Empty. Which means we cannot elevate emptiness to any objective doctrine. It is a teaching meant to deconstruct itself.
Anurag Jain
Soh Wei Yu I am not rejecting DO. I am only saying that it is not an objective truth.
Soh Wei Yu
Ok, but emptiness should lead to this insight rather than placing importance of ultimate over relative etc, or sort of 'spiritual bypassing' by escaping into empty clarity rather than discerning dependent origination or denying the soteriological value of a path, and so on.
"The knowledge that appearances arise unfailingly in dependence,
And the knowledge that they are empty and beyond all assertions—
As long as these two appear to you as separate,
There can be no realization of the Buddha’s wisdom.
Yet when they arise at once, not each in turn but both together,
Then through merely seeing unfailing dependent origination
Certainty is born, and all modes of misapprehension fall apart—
That is when discernment of the view has reached perfection.
– Lama Tsongkhapa"
Three Principal Aspects of the Path
LOTSAWAHOUSE.ORG
Three Principal Aspects of the Path
Three Principal Aspects of the Path
Anurag Jain
I agree. No bypassing.
1
    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited


    • Reply
    • 1d









    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • Remove Preview
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • Remove Preview
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • Remove Preview
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • 1d


    • Reply
    • Remove Preview
    • 1d