From time to time, people ask me why should they seek awakening. I say, awakening will be the best thing that happen in your life, I guarantee it. It is worth whatever effort you put into it. You won't regret it. Or as Daniel M. Ingram said, "Would I trade this for anything? Maybe world peace, but I would have to think about it. Until then, this totally rocks, and missing out on it would be barking crazy from my point of view." What is it like? I can only give a little preview, an excerpt of what I wrote taken from the AtR guide: "Personally, I can say from direct experience that direct realization is completely direct, immediate, and non-intellectual, it is the most direct and intimate taste of reality beyond the realm of imagination. It far exceeds one’s expectations and is far superior to anything the mind can ever imagine or dream of. It is utter freedom. Can you imagine living every moment in purity and perfection without effort, where grasping at identity does not take hold, where there is not a trace or sense of 'I' as a seer, feeler, thinker, doer, be-er/being, an agent, a 'self' entity residing inside the body somewhere relating to an outside world, and what shines forth and stands out in the absence of a 'self' is a very marvellous, wondrous, vivid, alive world that is full of intense vividness, joy, clarity, vitality, and an intelligence that is operating as every spontaneous action (there is no sense of being a doer), where any bodily actions, speech and thoughts are just as spontaneous as heart beating, fingernails growing, birds singing, air moving gently, breath flowing, sun shining - there is no distinction between ‘you are doing action’/’you are living’ and ‘action is being done to you’/’you are being lived’ (as there is simply no ‘you’ and ‘it’ - only total and boundless spontaneous presencing). This is a world where nothing can ever sully and touch that purity and perfection, where the whole of universe/whole of mind is always experienced vividly as that very purity and perfection devoid of any kind of sense of self or perceiver whatsoever that is experiencing the world at a distance from a vantagepoint -- life without ‘self’ is a living paradise free of afflictive/painful emotions (note: I am not proclaiming a state of Buddhahood or Arahantship where all traces of mental afflictions are totally obliterated, see this link http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/07/buddhahood-end-of-all-emotionalmental.html and Traditional Buddhist Attainments: Arahantship and Buddhahood in the original AtR guide https://app.box.com/s/157eqgiosuw6xqvs00ibdkmc0r3mu8jg for more details), where every color, sound, smell, taste, touch and detail of the world stands out as the very boundless field of pristine awareness, sparkling brilliance/radiance, colorful, high-saturation, HD, luminous, heightened intensity and shining wonderment and magicality, where the surrounding sights, sounds, scents, sensations, smells, thoughts are seen and experienced so clearly down to the tiniest details, vividly and naturally, not just in one sense door but all six, where the world is a fairy-tale like wonderland, revealed anew every moment in its fullest depths as if you are a new-born baby experiencing life for the first time, afresh and never seen before, where life is abundant with peace, joy and fearlessness even amidst the apparent chaos and troubles of life, and everything experienced through all the senses far surpasses any beauty previously experienced, as if the universe is like heaven made of glittering gold and jewels, experienced in complete gapless directness without separation, where life and the universe is experienced in its intense lucidity, clarity, aliveness and vivifying presence not only without intermediary and separation but without center and boundaries - infinitude as vast as an endless night sky is actualized every moment, an infinitude that is simply the vast universe appearing as an empty, distanceless, dimensionless and powerful presencing, where the mountains and stars on the horizon stands out no more distant than one’s breath, and shines forth as intimately as one’s heartbeat, where the cosmic scale of infinitude is actualized even in ordinary activities as the entirety of the universe is always participating as every ordinary activity including walking and breathing and one’s very body (without a trace of an ‘I’ or ‘mine’) is as much the universe/dependent origination in action and there is nothing outside of this boundless exertion/universe, where the purity and infinitude of the marvellous world experienced through being cleansed in all doors of perception is constant. (If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern. - William Blake) You know all the Mahayana Sutras (e.g. Vimalakirti Sutra), old Zen talks about seeing this very earth as pure land and all the Vajrayana talks about the point of tantra as the pure vision of seeing this very world, body, speech and mind in its primordial unfabricated purity as the Buddha field, palace, mandala, mantra and deity? Now you truly get it, you realise everything is really just like that when experienced in its primordial purity and perfection, and that the old sages have not been exaggerating at all. It is as much a literal and precise description of the state of consciousness as it is a metaphor. As I told John Tan before, Amitabha Sutra’s description of pure land resembles my living experience here and now. “To me it just means anatta. When what’s seen, tasted, touched, smelled are in clean purity, everywhere is pure land.” - John Tan, 2019. "If one is free from background self, all manifestations appear in clean purity in taste. Impurities from what I know come from mental constructions." – John Tan, 2020 This is a freedom that is free from any artificially constructed boundaries and limitations. And yet, this boundlessness does not in any way lead to the dissociation from one’s body, instead one feels more alive than ever as one’s very body, one grows ever more somatic, at home and intimate as one’s body. This is not a body normally conceived of, as the boundaries of an artificially solidified body that stands separated from the universe, dissolve into energetic streams of aliveness dancing and pulsating throughout the body in high energy and pleasure, as well as sensations of foot steps, movement, palm touching an object, where the body is no longer conflated with a constructed boundary of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, ‘self’ or ‘other’, where no trace of an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’ can be found in one’s state of consciousness - there’s only one indivisible, boundless and measureless world/mind - only this infinitude of a dynamic and seamlessly interconnected dance that we call ‘the universe’. This is better than any passing peak experiences be they arisen spontaneously, in meditation or through the use of psychedelic substances. And yet, despite experiencing life to it fullest every moment without any veils, in complete openness and utter nakedness, nothing gains a foothold in consciousness, for as vivid as they are, they leave no trace just as a bird leaves no tracks in the sky, an empty and lucid display such as a gust of wind and the glittery reflections of moon on the ocean waves - appearing but nothing ‘there’ or anywhere. All these words and descriptions I just wrote came very easily and spontaneously in a very short time as I am simply describing my current state of experience that is experienced every moment. I am not being poetic here but simply being as direct and clear as possible about what is immediately experienced. And this is only a figment that I am describing. If I were to tell you more of what this is like, you would not believe it. But once you enter this gateless realm you shall see that words always pale in comparison."

Labels: 1 comments | | edit post


 AN 7.49 Dutiyasaññā Sutta, the Buddha said:

‘The recognition of selflessness in what is unsatisfactory, monks, when developed and cultivated, is of great fruit and benefit; it merges with the death-free, has the death-free as its end.’ Thus it was said. In reference to what was it said?
Monks, when a monk’s mind frequently remains acquainted with the recognition of selflessness in what is unsatisfactory, his mind is rid of “I-making” and “mine-making” with regard to this conscious body and externally with regard to all representations, and has transcended conceit, is at peace, and is well liberated.2 Comments
View 1 more comment
  • This is a very important point. Instead of trying to cut out or deny that which is unsatisfactory, if one were to penetrate it, seeing, feeling, hearing the natural unfoldment of the already always integrated (dependantly originated) nature of all phenomena, one sees the no-self nature at every level and in every movement, and where nothing ever moves. The penetration is spontaneous, endless and unsupported. Yet the intimacy is beyond compare.
    2
    • Like
    • Reply
    • 1h

 

    If there is no subject-object duality, are there seperate mindstreams where non-duality is happening "to"?
    46 Comments

    46 Comments


    Separate from what? Is there such a thing as independant existence? Confusion and fear is dependant on separate identities.

    • Reply
    • 2d

  • i am reading a lovely book at the moment and it discusses coemergent mind, coemergent thought, and coemergent appearance. It seems to me that the thought of a subject perceiving an object is just a thought anyway. Theres no thinker thinking that thought so actually theres no duality anyway, it just seems that way.
    1

    • Reply
    • 2d
    • Edited

  • There were a certain class of questions that the Buddha refused to answer, that he said believing one way or another about them was not conducive to liberation, and from the Madhayamaka perspective to answer them would be to presume something in the asking of the question that is seen through in empiness. Still, the wondering itself, when the unanswerable question drops, seems like something valuable to me.

    • Reply
    • 2d

  • Admin
    Anatta and emptiness is in some ways diametrically opposite of Advaita view. We deconstruct "Oneness", there is no ontological "oneness" or a unifying reality in Buddhism. That would be an essence view, and the insight of anatta and emptiness deconstructs all essence views. Not only does all mindstreams remain differentiated rather than collapsed into oneness, all experiences are also not collapsed into oneness - therefore sight is not same as sound, no two moments or experience arising in dependence on the different sense faculties and objects are the same, and consciousness is always simply the myriad manifestation in all its diversities.
    [1:07 PM, 11/25/2020] John Tan: Only when you subsume into one, it turns solipsistic. So either freedom of extremes or you see DO and total exertion and emptiness. Then u do not fall into extremes.
    From AtR guide:
    “Although Bhāviveka doesn’t struggle that much, he is quite clear:
    “Since [the tīrthika position of] self, permanence, all pervasiveness and oneness contradict their opposite, [the Buddhist position of] no-self, impermanence, non-pervasiveness and multiplicity, they are completely different.” – Kyle Dixon, 2020
    "Therefore to see that all dusts are primordially pure from before beginning is the whole purpose of maturing the insight of anatta. The following text succinctly expresses this insight:
    ...According to Dogen, this “oceanic-body” does not contain the myriad forms, nor is it made up of myriad forms – it is the myriad forms themselves. The same instruction is provided at the beginning of Shobogenzo, Gabyo (pictured rice-cakes) where, he asserts that, “as all Buddhas are enlightenment” (sho, or honsho), so too, “all dharmas are enlightenment” which he says does not mean they are simply “one” nature or mind.
    Anything falling short of this realization cannot be said to be Buddhist's enlightenment and it is also what your Taiwanese teacher Chen wanted you to be clear when he spoke of the "equality of dharma" as having an initial glimpse of anatta will not result in practitioners seeing that phenomena are themselves primordially pure." - John Tan, 2011, Realization, Experience and Right View and my comments on "A" is "not-A", "not A" is "A"
    “All Buddhas and all things cannot be reduced to a static entity or principle symbolized as one mind, one nature, or the like. This guards against views that devaluate the unique, irreplaceable individuality of a single dharma.” - Hee-Jin Kim, Flowers of Emptiness, p.257
    .....
    “In many of your recent posts after the sudden realization of anatta from contemplating on Bahiya Sutta, you are still very much focused on the vivid non-dual presence. Now the everything feels ‘Me’ sort of sensation becomes a daily matter and the bliss of losing oneself completely into scenery, sound, taste is wonderful. This is different from everything collapsing into a “Single Oneness” sort of experience but a disperse out into the multiplicity of whatever arises. Everything feels closer than ‘me’ due to gaplessness. This is a natural [state after anatta]” - John Tan, 2011
    “It looks your Bahiya Sutta experience helped you see awareness in a different way, more .... empty. You had a background in a view that saw awareness as more inherent or essential or substantive?
    I had an experience like this too. I was reading a sloka in Nagarjuna's treatise about the "prior entity," and I had been meditating on "emptiness is form" intensely for a year. These two threads came together in a big flash. In a flash, I grokked the emptiness of awareness as per Madhyamika. This realization is quite different from the Advaitic oneness-style realization. It carries one out to the "ten-thousand things" in a wonderful, light and free and kaleidoscopic, playful insubstantial clarity and immediacy. No veils, no holding back. No substance or essence anywhere, but love and directness and intimacy everywhere...” - Greg Goode, Greg Goode on Advaita/Madhyamika (http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/.../greg-goode-on...)
    Greg Goode on Advaita/Madhyamika
    AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
    Greg Goode on Advaita/Madhyamika
    Greg Goode on Advaita/Madhyamika
    5

    • Reply
    • Remove Preview
    • 2d
    • Edited

  • Admin
    “The subsuming of everything into one's mind took place because one's mind seems to be the common factor in the mode of enquiry in solipsism.
    However if using the same line of reasoning, it is in others’ mind as well. If everything is in everyone's mind, then mind is no more the common factor but "Everything". If you see this common factor of everything and shift your attention to everything, then experience turns very "physical".
    Prasangika overcomes such issue by inquiring into its "inherentness". Taking the “seed-plant-tree" example, why is the seed "growing"? Is there anything at the side of the "sprout" that is saying it is growing? It can be understood as a decaying process as well.” - John Tan, 2019
    John Tan on how the tendency of solipsism arises post non-dual: “Characteristics of internal and private not deconstructed. Just like when the line that demarcates left and right dissolved, it does not mean all of left has become right or all of right has become left.” – John Tan, 2021
    “RESPONDENT: I’m just here more or less alone, I guess.
    RICHARD: Each and every human being is on their own as a flesh and blood body ... dependent upon no one; autonomous. Being ‘alone’ or lonely is a feature of being a self: ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world ... the world as-it-is.
    RESPONDENT: I didn’t mean lonely by alone.
    RICHARD: One of the hallmarks of self-realisation is to no longer feel the common or garden variety of loneliness but to experience the utter aloneness of being ‘The One With No Other’; the mystical literature abounds with descriptions of the master being alone ... in its root meaning of ‘all+one’ (ME ‘al one’ from ‘al ane’ from OE ‘al ana’ from ‘al an’ where ‘al’=‘all’ and ‘ana’/‘an’=‘one’). And I am not necessarily being pedagogic by digging around in the dictionaries ... for example:
    • [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘Contrary to what you have said, Krishnamurti never says that he has a Soul, a Self.
    • [Richard]: ‘I beg to differ: [quote]: ‘I maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is eternal ... this is the absolute, unconditioned Truth which is Life itself’. [end quote].
    • [Spiritual Seeker]: ‘His use of ‘sacred’ and ‘holy’ do not make him so, though you use the dictionary to establish your point. Krishnamurti often departed from the dictionary meaning and substituted another meaning. For example, ‘alone’ he made to mean ‘all one’.
    • [Richard]: ‘Once again, I beg to differ: he did not make ‘alone’ mean ‘all one’ at all ... etymologically it already means ‘all one’.
    The mystical quality applied to ‘alone’ has popularly come to mean ‘we are all one’ ... but the master is indeed alone in the sense of being solitary. In solipsism only oneself exists – there is no ‘others’ – and in some of the more archaic religions this gives rise to speculation that their god or goddess dreams universes peopled with beings for amusement or sport ... out of loneliness and/or boredom. Speaking personally, I was alone for eleven years – but never lonely – and one of the first things I noticed, upon breaking free of the massive delusion of godliness, was the ending of aloneness ... and I am still never, ever lonely. As a discrete flesh and blood body I am physically on my own and autonomous, but with no separative entity to feel either lonely or alone – cut off from the magnificence of the actual – the entire feeling of being solitary has ceased to exist.” - AF Richard, http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/.../generalco.../page09a.htm
    “[9:56 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: This is nondual https://www.spiritualteachers.org/what-is-enlightenment/
    [10:00 AM, 4/16/2021] William Lim: Thanks... it was useful to focus and unpack one topic at a time. Yesterday topic of "not seperate but yet distinct" was interesting.
    [10:13 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: In anatta the all differentiations remain
    [10:13 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: There is not subsuming into some oneness
    [10:14 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: “...According to Dogen, this “oceanic-body” does not contain the myriad forms, nor is it made up of myriad forms – it is the myriad forms themselves. The same instruction is provided at the beginning of Shobogenzo, Gabyo (pictured rice-cakes) where, he asserts that, “as all Buddhas are enlightenment” (sho, or honsho), so too, “all dharmas are enlightenment” which he says does not mean they are simply “one” nature or mind.”
    [10:14 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: - ted biringer
    [10:15 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: All mindstreams are likewise differentiated, they are not subsumed into one universal consciousness like advaita
    [10:15 AM, 4/16/2021] William Lim: All mindstreams are distinct and yet there are no seperation?
    [10:15 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: But there is not subject object, agency-action, perceiver perceived duality
    [10:16 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: In hearing, hearing is just sound, no hearer
    [10:16 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Etc
    [10:16 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Its not one universal consciousness arising as a sound, i dont have such concepts
    [10:16 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: That is stage 4.. or stage 1 to 4
    [10:17 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Even steven norquist havent really gone beyond stage 4 but his is nondual. Stage 4
    [10:17 AM, 4/16/2021] William Lim: If there is no subject-object, how can there be "another" midstream?
    [10:19 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: There is no subject object, but all differentiations remain. There is no hearer and no hearing besides sound, but sound is not the same as scenery, not the same as thought
    [10:19 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: There is no consciousness besides manifestation and manifestation is always differentiated
    [10:19 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: So even in experience everything is differentiated, why can’t there be different mindstreams?
    [10:20 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Under differing conditions, different manifestations appear
    [10:20 AM, 4/16/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Therefore dependent origination
    [10:20 AM, 4/16/2021] William Lim: This is good clarification”
    General Correspondence Number Nine
    ACTUALFREEDOM.COM.AU
    General Correspondence Number Nine
    General Correspondence Number Nine

    • Reply
    • Remove Preview
    • 2d

  • In Indra's net every pearl is a non-dual mindstream. So yes and not. They're connected, not separate but they're different pearls.
    1

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • Nagarjuna says that the peaceful cessation of prapanca of Buddha’s teaching of pratityasamutpada is without cessation, without origination; without nihilism, without eternalism; without identity, without difference; without coming, without going.
    For your question note "without difference": Difference is not manifest, hence it can not predicate (something) or be predicated (by/of something).
    6

    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited

    Admin
    I'd love to hear more about it...

      • Reply
      • 1d



  • Admin
    This topic has been a thorny issue for me for quite some years. It was what triggered me out of Advaita and into Buddhism, since Buddhism postulates myriad mindstreams and thus resolves the issue of solipism, etc.
    However, the issue reappears once we realize that "mindstreams" is actually a convention. Buddhism goes on to say that space itself is merely a notion, non-existent even conventionally, so one is left wondering what ground is there for any distinction between mindstreams. And if there is no distinction, how isn't reality one unified whole.
    The answer, like
    Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
    seemed to hint, may lie in saying that mindstreams are neither identical (Advaita?) nor different (materialism?). What that actually means it's a different story. My guess right now would be that groundless luminosity manifests, and due to confusion it is mistaken for dualistic appearances (and mindstreams). Luminosity being groundless, it's beyond notions of space and time, but due to confusion appearances seem localized and time-bound. Again, being groundless, such luminosity is not a reified source, but neither is it non-existent, because it's the groundless ground for appearances. The 3rd Karmapa verse comes to mind. Anyway, I'm just rambling here. As we say in portuguese, this is "too much sand for my truck."
    6

    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited

    In type of a Neti Neti way of analysis, what makes a mind different?
    Hereditary + Different life experiences perhaps.
    If we were all identical clones raised in identical circumstances and environments; our views, behaviors and modes of thinking most certainly would be a lot closer.
    Sometimes it is said twins think and feel the same thing at the same moment.
    If we broke through all the different sets of experiences that make up each individual to simple awareness of being would the experience there of be closer to being the same?

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • André A. Pais
    and would this also be a close to both anatta and one mind of awareness?

      • Reply
      • 1d



  • Let's talk phenomenology here - from "first person" experience.
    How does non-duality "feels" like, and how do the fact that you can "feel" only your hand, and not your cat's feet, fit into the non-dual experience.

    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited

  • Admin
    In non-duality there is no "my hand". There is just luminous appearances and sensations, being variedly labeled.

    • Reply
    • 1d

    But the luminous appearances and sensations are exclusively Andre's experience (conventionally labelled or otherwise).
    From Andre's "point of view", there isn't luminous appearances and sensations of the cat (or the cat's point of view).

      • Reply
      • 1d
      • Edited



  • Admin
    The idea that there is a cat with a pov is merely an idea. That "this experience" itself is arising from a certain pov too is an idea. In non-duality there are no pov's or perspectives. There is no space or distance.
    That these appearances are André's is also an idea. There is no André to be found. There is no mindstream to be found either.
    1

    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited

  • "In non-duality, there are no point of views or perspectives"
    André A. Pais, that is exactly my question.
    I'm pretty sure you have senate experience that I am not aware of, and I have senate experience that you have no purview to.
    How do you explain off "point of views" when "you" can't experience "my" thoughts and feelings?

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • Admin
    Empirically speaking, "your pov" is a figment of imagination, so it's easily explained away. Logically speaking it's harder, because then solipsism is right there.
    2

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • On one hand, non dual experience reveals that it's all simply luminous appearances and sensations - that are conventionally and mistaken labelled to or as a person.
    On another hand, these luminous appearances and sensations are "exclusive" to Tom and not Jane.
    How do you reconcile this "exclusivity" (and hence "localization") with non-dual experience?

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • Admin
    Exclusivity and localization are notions. Empirically speaking, that's undeniable. That there is anything other than this is a thought, that there is only this is also a thought. This experience isn't happening anywhere, to no-one.
    This experience could very well be a dream, and thus totally subjective. The existence of others is always inferred. All attempts of reconciliation with "the experience of others" is always conceptual. Now I'm not defending solipsism, I'm just saying it is empirically very solid. And that ultimately, "many mindstreams" is a notion, and "just this mindstream" (which is unfindable anyway) is also a notion.
    1

    • Reply
    • 1d

    André A. Pais
    Thanks for your comments. I greatly appreciate any takes that counteract solipsism in this topic.

      • Reply
      • 1d



  • Admin
    I don't have answers for this, mind you. And I suspect there aren't answers for this. Reality isn't this way vs. that way. There is no "way" reality is. Ultimately, there is no "existence" or "reality" to be this or that way. There is no non-existence either.
    This is a deeeep rabbit hole to fall into...
    1

    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited

  • All sensations only come about when the conditions are right. Eye + light + reflected off something. Except that something also is only there based on conditions, as is the light and the eye. Eventually this mind stream drops the habit of seeing inherentness of things. You see that each sensation is a whole, complete exertion of all conditions of all times and places. When you replace the world of things with the world of interrelatedness, the idea of a you who has access to only these sensations only conventionally makes sense . Yes certain sensations are only expressed in certain places, because the conditions are such that they are only expressed there. There is no connecting ground between moments that collects all the sensations that conventionally appear to you. Each one is gone, gone, gone, never again. Conditions come together for a process called human-ing who does memory-ing at this now-ing right here-ing. All of which disappears as soon as the conditions stop being so.
    1

    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited

    Admin
    I just saw this post and although I don’t like woo woo pseudoscientific interpretations of quantum mechanics, I think this post still makes a lot of sense in a Buddhist context:
    1

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • Soh Wei Yu
    Yep this is a pretty great description of it!

      • Reply
      • 21h



  • Admin
    Myriad Objects
    concerning solipsism, we could try to tackle it from ultimate and relative perspectives.
    Ultimately speaking, experience or 'this mindstream' lack any singular or plural nature, it's not a findable thing - so we can't say 'this experience /this mindstream' is the only one existing. If there is no 'my mind' there can't be 'the mind's of others'.
    Relatively speaking, the multiplicity of experience and appearances seem to justify that there is something other than this experience, otherwise experience would become frozen in its own singularity.
    William Lim, these types of analyses seem to go against the purpose of Madhyamaka (especially in its prasangika flavor). Relative reality is not to be ultimately explained, because if it were it would survive ultimate analysis and it would have a nature of its own - it would not be empty. When we start analyzing relative experience too much we inevitably start looking for the ultimate - but ultimately there is no nature, and therefore nothing to be examined, nothing that could match our dualistic conceptions. This is one of the criticisms that is geared towards the Gelug tradition, that tries a bit too hard (in the view of its critics) to explain reality - as it had a final 'way of being' that could be explained.
    Like
    Tyler Jones
    said, that's perhaps why the Buddha remained silent when faced with some questions. They are simply beyond our capacity to answer them - but not beyond our capacity to know them.
    The Padmakara Translation Group, in their introduction to Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara (with notes by Mipham Rinpoche) goes a bit into the connection between the silence of the Buddha and the goal of Madhyamaka as pacifying all notions.
    2

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • Admin
    Jayson MPaul
    in your comment you go into notions of different times and places, and into the notion of inter-relatedness. All these notions are refuted in Buddhist analysis searching for the ultimate nature. There is no process of inter-relatedness because there are no entities to be related. There is also no appearances appearing here and not there because here and there are relative notions devoid of true existence. Space is non-existent even conventionally, Buddhism tell us.
    My point is just that it is a thin line between explaining the relative and ascribing to it some final nature. Ultimately, all models are just conceptual proliferations, even models of impermanence, interdependence, total exertion or non-arising. They are all valid up to a point, but not ultimately valid. My 2 cents anyway.

    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited

    André A. Pais
    Yes there are no entities to be inter-related. All there is is inter-relatedness. It is hard to see this before the deeply held view of inherentness of things is dropped. You are describing the A- emptiness analysis. There are no times and spaces in this analysis. There is also the A+ non-afflictive dependent origination, which links the conventional and the ultimate. In this conventional phenomena are not entities but actually just more conditions exerting as appearances.
    1

      • Reply
      • 21h



  • Admin
    The Only Way to the Ultimate Truth
    [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.
    ...
    Buddhism does not define “individual minds” as such, but rather discrete, momentary continuums which arise from their own causes and conditions. In short, jivas, pudgalas, atmans, etc., do not function as defined by their proponents, so they are negated.
    ...
    Things appear to be discrete, so we label them “discrete.” If things appear to be nondiscrete, we are not able to label them as discrete. For example, from a distance a mountain does not appear to be composed of discrete parts, so we label that appearance “mountain.” When we get closer, we see there are many parts, and what was formally labeled a mountain gets redefined into slopes, peaks, ravines, and so on. When we meet someone, we label that person a self, a person, a living being, but these labels attached to appearances will not bear analysis. It’s the same with mental continuum’s, even the notion of mental continuum will not bear ultimate analysis, but since the cause and result of karma, etc., appear to be discrete, mind streams are, conventionally speaking, discrete, because there is an observable function.. If we wish to aggregate minds, we refer to all consciousnesses as the dhatu of consciousness, just as we refer to aggregated elements as the space dhatu, etc.
    ...
    The argument that a knower is a self has already been advanced and dismantled in Buddhist texts. If a knower can have many cognitions, it already has many parts and cannot be a unitary or an integral entity. We are therefore not operating here at a position prior to recognizing discrete entities, the very fact that our minds (citta) are variegated (citra) proves the mind is not an integral entity, proves it is made of parts, and since those cognitions happen sequentially, this proves the mind is also impermanent, momentary, and dependent. So, it is impossible for a conventional knower to be a self.
    May be an image of text that says '22:32 link]i text Beacon's awakeningtoreality.com introduction 69% "meaning readt introduction Petitt. these texts. introduction good. Shantarakshita's Tsultrim Gyamtso the between Akuamoa 1) Dixon middle introduction Luminosity( Mar 24 Mahamudra to on Andre: laptop empty andi *arose* dependent Shakya conditions, dependent "non-arisen", ultimate "laptop" arose vali mode d arising empty causes and nature Niguma and phenomena clearly nderstood emptiness free from emptiness. insight of Non-Arising(13) Non-dual Nyingma(1 ) experience What Dure unfabricated foundation realized. view EnlightenmentIs presence which admasambhava'

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • Admin
    [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.
    DHARMAWHEEL.NET
    Dharma Wheel - Login
    Dharma Wheel - Login

    • Reply
    • Remove Preview
    • 1d

  • May be an image of text that says '22:32 link]i text Beacon's awakeningtoreality.com introduction 69% "meaning readt introduction Petitt. these texts. introduction good. Shantarakshita's Tsultrim Gyamtso the between Akuamoa 1) Dixon middle introduction Luminosity( Mar 24 Mahamudra to on Andre: laptop empty andi *arose* dependent Shakya conditions, dependent "non-arisen", ultimate "laptop" arose vali mode d arising empty causes and nature Niguma and phenomena clearly nderstood emptiness free from emptiness. insight of Non-Arising(13) Non-dual Nyingma(1 ) experience What Dure unfabricated foundation realized. view EnlightenmentIs presence which admasambhava'

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • Admin
    But indeed, there can be a "naive" or "incorrect interpretation" of dependent origination and that is to be avoided, or at least understood to be merely provisional.
    Kyle Dixon, 2019:
    “...the heart of the buddhadharma and Dzogchen in general is the jñāna that results from recognizing the non-arising of phenomena.
    If that jñāna is revealed in your mindstream then you will know the meaning of dependent origination.
    All practices of Dzogchen and the buddhadharma aim to awaken you so that this is experientially known.
    You have to differentiate interdependence i.e., dependent existence [parabhāva] and dependent origination [pratītyasamutpāda].
    They are not the same.
    Nāgārjuna discusses the difference in many of his works.
    Parabhāva is as you mentioned above, “interdependence,” things depending on things in a coarse sense. Nāgārjuna states that parabhāva is actually a guise for svabhāva, which is the main object of refutation in his view. Thus mistaking parabhāva for pratītyasamutpāda is a major error.
    He also states that s/he who sees dependent existence [parabhāva], inherent existence [svabhāva], existence [bhāva] or non-existence [abhāva], do not see the truth of the buddha’s teaching.
    The main point is that we cannot mistake dependent origination [pratītyasamutpāda] for mere interdependence.”
    The Correct View of Dependent Origination
    John Tan just said: This comment by Malcolm is really good.👍
    Session Start: Wednesday, August 09, 2006
    (11:32 PM) AEN: namdrol:
    While it is true that many non-Buddhist paths a renunciate and so on, the unique feature of the Buddha's path is understanding that phenomena are dependently originated. Dependent origination is critical in developing a correct view.
    Is the mere knowledge that phenomena dependently originated sufficient? No.
    It is possible to hold a view of dependent origination which is nevertheless realist or substantialist in nature-- a perfect example of this would the way Thich Nhat Hahn's "interbeing" is generally understood. Here, it is never questioned that the mutually depedendent phenomena exist in dependence because they all exist together. In general, this is also the naive understanding of dependent origination.
    (11:32 PM) AEN: Even so, this view of dependent orgination already marks the beginning of turning from a wrong or incorrect view, to a right or correct view.
    How do we move from a substantialist interpretation of dependent origination to a non-substantialist understanding?
    We need to first be open to having our existential assumptions undermined. Any clinging to existence and non-existence must be eradicated before we can properly appreciate the meaning of DO. Some people think this simply means clinging to inherent or ultimate existence. But this is not so. Whatever arises in dependence also must be devoid of mere existence as well.
    To understand this fully we must understand the perfection of wisdom sutras in their entirety and the thinking of Nagarjuna and his followers.
    (11:32 PM) AEN:
    When we have truly understood that phenomena are devoid existence and non-existence because they are dependently originated; we can understand that phenomena do not arise, since existence and dependence are mutually exclusive. Any existence that can be pointed to is merely putative and nominal, and does not bear any reasoned investigation.
    Since phenomena are dependently originated, and the consequence of dependent origination is that there are no existing existents, we can understand that existents are non-arising by nature. As Buddhapalita states "We do not claim non-existence, we merely remove claims for existing existents."
    Whatever does not arise by nature is free from existence and non-existence, and that is the meaning of "freedom from proliferation." In this way, dependent origination = emptiness, and this is the correct view that Buddhas elucidate. There is no other correct view than this.
    N
    Labels: Ācārya Malcolm Smith, Dependent Origination, Emptiness, Nagarjuna |
    The Correct View of Dependent Origination
    AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
    The Correct View of Dependent Origination
    The Correct View of Dependent Origination

    • Reply
    • Remove Preview
    • 23h

  • Admin
    “Pursuant to the middle view, Tson-kha-pa cites Nagarjuna's Yuk-tisastika and Candrakirti's Yuktisastika-vrtti.
    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

    • Reply
    • 23h

  • Admin
    How can there be inter-relatedness without inter-relata? For example, impermanence is explained to refute the view of permanence, but both are ultimately transcended. The same with the view of emptiness or dependent origination. They are antidotes to views, but cannot themselves become views.

    • Reply
    • 21h

    André A. Pais
    it is exactly that there is interelatedness without interelata. Cause and effect (and anything else you can imagine) depend on each other both ways. They originate together, which is to say they don't originate at all. There is no thing there but you can't find any dividing line between the 2 appearances. They go with each other in a way that if either stops they both stop. It's more like an oceanic whole of many expressions, which isn't part of the ocean or made up of the ocean. The ocean is the very expressions themselves.

    • Reply
    • 3h

  • If this still doesn't make sense then do some practice seeing how you can find the boundaries in direct experience. Can you find the dividing line in the experience of a bell tinnngss, for which part is the ear, the air, the bell? Also ponder how the sound doesn't arise unless all the conditions are there. Another good one is to see that characteristics of things in direct experience are not really in any of the conditions. That vivid redness of a flower isn't in the flower, the light, the eye, the brain. You actually need all the conditions to make it so. Then extend this apparent paradox of characteristics to thingness in general. Does the appleness of the apple reside in the brain, the apple itself, etc?

    • Reply
    • 3h

  • Admin
    Can you actually find such "inter-relatedness"? If things don't originate, how can there be a truly existing inter-relatedness? Can the son of a barren woman truly have blue eyes? If things are illusory, how can their interdependency be truly established?
    I have no problem with notions of exertion, inter-relatedness, emptiness, etc. But if they become objects of attachment because they actually are "how reality is / functions," then the medicine of inquiry has become the poison of reference points.
    Imo, the mind can't totally let go and open itself up as long as there are notions keeping it in place.

      • Reply
      • 9m



  • Well yes the whole problem is that you can’t have things whose *arising* is *co*-, or reciprocally, dependent. Think about it: When particularly *arising* is that which is reciprocally dependent, then just none of the relata get to come to arising. Which one comes first? The one who will arise after the other—relying on the other for its own arising—, or the other who will arise after the one—relying on the one for its own arising?
    These don’t arise. The consequent recognition is of unborn.
    Or... that may have you look away from reciprocal dependence. That is, you may now think that since this doesn’t work, that things are therefore *not* dependently arisen. This is a fundamental mistake and does not count at all as understanding dependent arising or seeing the dhamma. Going really hard and deep into the validity and unyieldingness of dependent arising is rather specific and probably the most challenging.
    2

    • Reply
    • 16h
    • Edited

  • Admin
    “Steve, Madhyamika interprets the "thingness" gestalt as a type conception, a way of reacting or conceptualizing words or concepts or sensations, as if there were existence involved. Maybe some words seem to invite this kind of reifying conceptualization more than others - we usually feel that more physical-sounding, more concrete words entail a more independent kind of existence. But Madhyamika would refute this kind of existence across the board.
    Does "dependent arising" require there is (A) something dependent that arises, and (😎 something that A is dependent on? Even though Madhyamika itself refutes this?
    Not according to Madhyamika itself. When A is said to be dependent, the meaning is that it is not INdependent. It is not self-sufficient, it has no essence or true nature.
    What does "dependent" mean? Dependence is usually broken down into three types. Phenomenon A relies on pieces and parts, on conditions, and on conceptual designation.
    But none of these things (pieces + parts, conditions, conceptual designation) is an inherent, self-standing thing. Each of these things itself dependent.
    This kind of dependency is not linear, tracing back to an original first cause or universal stopping point. It's more like a web of dependencies. It's not arboreal, it's rhizomatic.” - Greg Goode
    1

      • Reply
      • 10h



  • There is not any separate mindstream in which the play of thoughts as subject and object is happening.
    So what happened is that this question arises in your mind and mind grasped at it. This very grasping is (or the result of) subject-object duality.
    Now the point is, are you able to recognise this grasping. If you are then you get your answer in direct experience.

    • Reply
    • 1d

    Admin
    If there is no separate mindstream, why is your mindstream not aware of William's question?
    1

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • I think William is asking about different mindstreams in terms of duality and non duality. Not his or mine

    • Reply
    • 1d

  • I'm asking why you can't read my thoughts or feel my sensation despite no sense of object-subject and no seperation of you and the world and technically, no seperation of you and me.

    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited

    Admin
    From atr guide:
    “Buddha never used the term "self" to refer to an unconditioned, permanent, ultimate entity. He also never asserted that there was no conventional "self," the subject of transactional discourse. So, it is very clear in the sutras that the Buddha negated an ultimate self and did not negate a conventional self.” – Arcaya Malcolm Smith, 2020
    “Anatman is the negation of an unconditioned, permanent, ultimate entity that moves from one temporary body to another. It is not the negation of "Sam," "Fred," or "Jane" used as a conventional designation for a collection of aggregates. Since the Buddha clearly states in many Mahāyāna sūtras, "all phenomena" are not self, and since everything is included there, including buddhahood, therefore, there are no phenomena that can be called a self, and since there are nothing outside of all phenomena, a "self," other than an arbitrary designation, does not exist.”
    - Arcaya Malcolm Smith
    Some conversations with John back in 2012 are quite illuminating on this subject:
    John: To me is just is "Soh" an eternal being...that's all. No denial of Soh as a conventional self. All is just him is an inference too. There is no other is also an assumption.
    Soh: That's what I said, lol. He didn't see it.
    John: But other mindstreams is a more valid assumption. Don't you think so? And verifiable.
    Soh: Yeah.
    John: Whatever in conventional reality still remain, only that reification is seen through. Get it? The centre is seen through be it "subject" or "object", they are imputed mental constructs. Only the additional "ghostly something" is seen through. Not construing and reifying. Nothing that "subject" does not exist. This seeing through itself led to implicit non-dual experience.
    Soh: "Nothing that "subject" does not exist." - what you mean?
    John: Not "subject" or "object" does not exist. Or dissolving object into subject or subject into object… etc. That "extra" imputation is seen through. Conventional reality still remain as it is. By the way, focus more on practice in releasing any holdings.... do not keep engaging on all these.
    Soh: I see.. Conventional reality are just names imposed on non-inherent aggregates, right.
    John: Yes. That led to releasing of the mind from holding...no subsuming of anything. What you wrote is unclear. Do you get what I mean? Doesn't mean Soh does not exist… lol. Or I am you or you are me. Just not construing and reifying.
    Soh: I see. Nondual is collapsing objects to self, thus I am you. Anatta simply sees through reification, but conventionally I am I, you are you.
    John: Or collapsing subject into object. You are still unclear about this and mixed up. Seeing through the reification of "subject", "object", "self", "now", "here". Get it? Seeing through "self" led to implicit non-dual experience. Because experience turns direct without reification. In seeing, just scenery. Like you see through the word "weather". That weather-Ness. Be it subject/object/weather/...etc. That is mind free of seeing "things" existing inherently. Experience turns vivid direct and releasing. But I don't want you to keep participating idle talk and neglect practice… always over emphasizing unnecessarily. What happens to experience?
    Soh: you mean after anatta? Direct, luminous, but no ground of abiding (like some inherent awareness).
    John: And what do you mean by that?
    Soh: Means there are only transient six sense streams experience, in seen just seen, etc. Nothing extra.
    John: Six stream experiences is just a convenient raft. Nothing ultimate. Not only must you see that there is no Seer + seeing + seen… you must see the immense connectedness. Implicit Non-dual in experience in anatta to you means what?” - Soh, 2014
    1

      • Reply
      • 1d



  • Oh then I misunderstood the question

      • Reply
      • 1d



  • Difference is refuted on the basis of refutation of identity. How can you have difference if you don't have identity? Which exactly would be different? When you say "why [can't you] read my thoughts or feel my sensation despite no sense of object-subject and no seperation of you and the world and technically, no seperation of you and me", the assumption is identity, which is reciprocally dependent on difference (and hence each lack establishment).
    4

    • Reply
    • 1d
    • Edited

    Admin
    This seems parallel to saying, how can there be other minds if "this mind right here" can't itself be found?

  • Reply
  • 1d