Posts
André A. Pais posted:
I prostrate at the feet of the noble lama!
Having obtained a body with all the freedoms and advantages, encountered the precious teachings of the Buddha, and genuinely aroused the right attitude, now we need to put the Dharma into practice without any mistake. For this, we must take to heart and practise the ‘Parting from the Four Attachments’.
What exactly does this imply?
—not being attached to the present life;
—not being attached to the three realms of saṃsāra;
—not being attached to your own self-interest;
—and not clinging to some true reality in things and their characteristics.
To explain this further:
It is futile to be attached to this life, since it is like a bubble on water, and the time of our death uncertain.
These three realms of saṃsāra are like a poisonous fruit, delicious at first, but ultimately harmful. Anyone who is attached to them must be deluded.
Attachment to your own self-interest is like nurturing the child of an enemy. It may bring joy at first, but in the end only leads to ruin. Just so, attachment to your own welfare brings happiness in the short term, but eventually leads you to the lower realms.
Clinging to true existence in things and their characteristics is like perceiving water in a mirage. For a moment it looks like water, but there is nothing there to drink. This saṃsāric existence does appear to the deluded mind, yet when it is examined with discriminating awareness, nothing, nothing at all, is found to have any intrinsic existence. So, having come to an understanding where your mind does not dwell in the past, the future, or the present, you should recognize all phenomena as naturally free from any conceptual complexity.
If you act in this way,
—by relinquishing attachment to this life, there will be no more rebirth in the lower realms,
—by relinquishing attachment to the three realms of saṃsāra, there will be no more rebirth in saṃsāric existence,
—by relinquishing attachment to your own self-interest, there will be no more rebirths as a śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha.
—finally, through abandoning any clinging to reality in things and their characteristics, you will swiftly attain complete and perfect buddhahood.
This completes Sakya Paṇḍita’s unerring instruction on the ‘Parting from the Four Attachments’, the enlightened intent of the glorious Sachen Kunga Nyingpo.
...
“If you are attached to this life, you are not a true spiritual practitioner;
If you are attached to saṃsāra, you have no renunciation;
If you are attached to your own self-interest, you have no bodhicitta;
If there is grasping, you do not have the View.” - Manjushri
...
G wrote:
All these advice lead to nothing. Its all a kind of analysis-based summation. So you must sum all those different directions and try to make out something of them. Just more of the same old stuff. The mind gets addicted to an analytical seeking stance which tends to become the real conditioning.
Instead: there is only one POV in the universe. There had never been another; there will neve be another. There is no choice. Be aware of it. Be it..... Analyse what? In the last moments of life will there be time to go through all those clever advices?!
Andre replied:
several things I disagree with here.
First, I'm slowly realizing that disagreeing with and disparaging lineage masters is seldomly a good idea. We are ignorant little ants compared to them, so criticizing them only deepens the gap between us.
Second, these instructions point to a gradual set of contemplations, each with its own realization. So the point is not to have a distillation of it all, but to gradually get to subtler realizations.
Thirdly, I don't think this is the same old stuff. It's old, indeed, but it is rarely reflected upon.
Forthly, the mind doesn't get addicted to conscious patterns of analysis. The mind is attached to subconscious tendencies, which that analysis is precisely trying to uproot.
Fifthly, analysis is a means to a non-conceptual realization. At the moment of death, it's that non-conceptual realization that is helpful, not the conceptual analysis.
Sixthly, what is that singular pov? If there is no choice, what is the point of instructing one to be aware of it? In the moment of death, clinging to the existence of some ultimate whatever isn't gonna help. It's grasping to one of the ontogical extremes and thus a ticket to more samsara
G: First, and what if the lineage of masters is an All-There-Is-is-Ground-Awareness lineage? Then its OK to disagree with and disparage?
Andre: G, it's never ok to disparage, even if their views are provisional or "inferior".
G: I had to look up the meaning of "disparage". I agree.
Lets drop this. I am in a premenstrual mood.
Just that, right now, looking at what others have to say about what the taste of the grapes I am eating makes no sense.
I wrote:
If anatta is realised there is no grasping at some ground awareness. “Awareness” is not referring to a truly existing undifferentiated oneness but just an empty convention like weather, a convenient label for the multiplicity of self luminous displays. Analysis on this point is required until one directly realises this beyond a shadow of doubt, then all appearances arise as one’s radiance as the bardo thodol (“tibetan book of the dead”) often emphasize is the requirement for liberation while dying.
The advice posted by Andre above can be summarised as completely non attached yet fully engaged. This is the practice-actualization after anatta realisation and has to penetrate all three states to be of help at death. https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/.../tibetan-book...
When anatta matures, one is fully and completely integrated into whatever arises till there is no difference and no distinction.
When sound arises, fully and completely embraced with sound yet non-attached. Similarly, in life we must be fully engaged yet non-attached
—not being attached to the present life;
—not being attached to the three realms of saṃsāra;
—not being attached to your own self-interest;
—and not clinging to some true reality in things and their characteristics.
To explain this further:
It is futile to be attached to this life, since it is like a bubble on water, and the time of our death uncertain.
These three realms of saṃsāra are like a poisonous fruit, delicious at first, but ultimately harmful. Anyone who is attached to them must be deluded.
Attachment to your own self-interest is like nurturing the child of an enemy. It may bring joy at first, but in the end only leads to ruin. Just so, attachment to your own welfare brings happiness in the short term, but eventually leads you to the lower realms.
Clinging to true existence in things and their characteristics is like perceiving water in a mirage. For a moment it looks like water, but there is nothing there to drink. This saṃsāric existence does appear to the deluded mind, yet when it is examined with discriminating awareness, nothing, nothing at all, is found to have any intrinsic existence. So, having come to an understanding where your mind does not dwell in the past, the future, or the present, you should recognize all phenomena as naturally free from any conceptual complexity.
If you act in this way,
—by relinquishing attachment to this life, there will be no more rebirth in the lower realms,
—by relinquishing attachment to the three realms of saṃsāra, there will be no more rebirth in saṃsāric existence,
—by relinquishing attachment to your own self-interest, there will be no more rebirths as a śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha.
—finally, through abandoning any clinging to reality in things and their characteristics, you will swiftly attain complete and perfect buddhahood.
This completes Sakya Paṇḍita’s unerring instruction on the ‘Parting from the Four Attachments’, the enlightened intent of the glorious Sachen Kunga Nyingpo.
...
“If you are attached to this life, you are not a true spiritual practitioner;
If you are attached to saṃsāra, you have no renunciation;
If you are attached to your own self-interest, you have no bodhicitta;
If there is grasping, you do not have the View.” - Manjushri
...
G wrote:
All these advice lead to nothing. Its all a kind of analysis-based summation. So you must sum all those different directions and try to make out something of them. Just more of the same old stuff. The mind gets addicted to an analytical seeking stance which tends to become the real conditioning.
Instead: there is only one POV in the universe. There had never been another; there will neve be another. There is no choice. Be aware of it. Be it..... Analyse what? In the last moments of life will there be time to go through all those clever advices?!
Andre replied:
several things I disagree with here.
First, I'm slowly realizing that disagreeing with and disparaging lineage masters is seldomly a good idea. We are ignorant little ants compared to them, so criticizing them only deepens the gap between us.
Second, these instructions point to a gradual set of contemplations, each with its own realization. So the point is not to have a distillation of it all, but to gradually get to subtler realizations.
Thirdly, I don't think this is the same old stuff. It's old, indeed, but it is rarely reflected upon.
Forthly, the mind doesn't get addicted to conscious patterns of analysis. The mind is attached to subconscious tendencies, which that analysis is precisely trying to uproot.
Fifthly, analysis is a means to a non-conceptual realization. At the moment of death, it's that non-conceptual realization that is helpful, not the conceptual analysis.
Sixthly, what is that singular pov? If there is no choice, what is the point of instructing one to be aware of it? In the moment of death, clinging to the existence of some ultimate whatever isn't gonna help. It's grasping to one of the ontogical extremes and thus a ticket to more samsara
G: First, and what if the lineage of masters is an All-There-Is-is-Ground-Awareness lineage? Then its OK to disagree with and disparage?
Andre: G, it's never ok to disparage, even if their views are provisional or "inferior".
G: I had to look up the meaning of "disparage". I agree.
Lets drop this. I am in a premenstrual mood.
Just that, right now, looking at what others have to say about what the taste of the grapes I am eating makes no sense.
I wrote:
If anatta is realised there is no grasping at some ground awareness. “Awareness” is not referring to a truly existing undifferentiated oneness but just an empty convention like weather, a convenient label for the multiplicity of self luminous displays. Analysis on this point is required until one directly realises this beyond a shadow of doubt, then all appearances arise as one’s radiance as the bardo thodol (“tibetan book of the dead”) often emphasize is the requirement for liberation while dying.
The advice posted by Andre above can be summarised as completely non attached yet fully engaged. This is the practice-actualization after anatta realisation and has to penetrate all three states to be of help at death. https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/.../tibetan-book...
When anatta matures, one is fully and completely integrated into whatever arises till there is no difference and no distinction.
When sound arises, fully and completely embraced with sound yet non-attached. Similarly, in life we must be fully engaged yet non-attached
