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Mr E posted:
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Sometimes I feel like I'm animating life as I go and everything is happening in my awareness and this awareness is imagining itself to be this body. It's playing all the roles and others are actors. When i see people in traffic, once they're out of my sight and I'm not aware of them, that's it, they're gone as they never existed. Although I could have assumptions that they're going somewhere real.
Also past historic events are all made up by my mind and they never happened. It feels like solipsism but even what I identify myself as body and mind aren't real. Like I'm God and I'm playing with myself and this time I had to forget it and now I'm using all sorts of spiritual practices to wake myself up. Just like how it is in a dream
Has anyone else experienced this? Kind of depressing . Intense meditation is what sets me free from these thoughts.
Soh replied:
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There's a whole chapter in the long/original AtR guide that is a thorough refutation and negation of solipsism that you should read. The third document in https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/06/the-awakening-to-reality-practice-guide.html . It's too long to post here so I'll only paste a few short excerpts.
[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 you do not fall into extremes.
“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
“Bhāviveka demonstrates the proper way to view buddhanature:
The statement "The tathāgata pervades" means wisdom pervades all objects of knowledge, but it does not mean abiding in everything like Viśnu. Further, "Tathāgatagarbhin" means emptiness, signlessness and absence of aspiration exist the continuums of all sentient beings, but is not an inner personal agent pervading everyone.” – Kyle Dixon, 2021
Jake Karat
I once slipped into a solipsistic state - admittedly after consuming to much cannabis over a summer after graduating high school - and it was terrifying. I look back and have realized after reading more on Buddhism that there was something missing to the "approach".
This is where "No-Self" is so important to understand. Solipsism could be the result of "non-duality" IF there is still an attachment to a sense of "Self", in which case non-dual is still not fully understood.
When there is no "Self", there is no, "There's only me.", perspective. There are just "happenings", which include the stream of conceptualizations that give an appearance and feeling of a "Self" in the first place.
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Soh Wei Yu
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Jake Karat
John Tan wrote:
Yes solipsistic state can be overcome by:
1. What he said.
2. Overcoming the sense of "mine".
3. Also by de-constructing via dependent designation into kadag, primordial purity.
4. Essencelessness
Solipsisim is an extreme of deducing a conclusion using our existing dualistic and inherent paradigm. Negation without affirming anything will not.
Likewise de-construction does not lead into an all encompassing space, that too is an abstraction and extrapolation. It is to slowly allow us to see through the faulty premise and open up the entire field.
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“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
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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
“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.” – Dzogchen teacher Acarya 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.”
- Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith
The Awakening to Reality Practice Guide and AtR Guide - abridged version
AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
The Awakening to Reality Practice Guide and AtR Guide - abridged version
The Awakening to Reality Practice Guide and AtR Guide - abridged version
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