Someone has translated some of my writings to Spanish:

http://petitcalfred.wordpress.com/tag/traduccion/

Hi AEN,

Greg commented on Stian's A raw note on emptiness yesterday.  I like Stian's note and Greg's comments very much, they are all very insightful.   So just posted it here to share with readers.

Do go through it and share your thoughts.  Relate your experiences and insights about it.   Happy reading!
  

A raw note on emptiness:
Emptiness is not the way things are, because things are not any way at all. And that is emptiness.

The emptiness doctrine *do* explain the way things are, meaning the ontological status and essential nature of everything, but instead of asserting—as one might have expected—an actual way that things are, the doctrine questions being any which way.

A thing's 'being' is what it is regardless of anything else. It is what one would eventually find if one stripped something down to its bare minimum—the atomic (indivisible) core which ultimately identifies the thing.  The emptiness doctrine is a completely uncompromising critique of regarding 'being' like this—as intrinsic, inherent self-identity.

So, according to the emptiness doctrine, the way things really are is that they are not, in their final, inner-most nature or being, any which way. But this does not preclude things from being any particular way, only that they cannot *be* in a static, fixed, unchangeable or indivisible way.

Since we can not know the ultimate nature or being of something—because it has no such final identity—we can only know the thing in its ordinary, conventional appearance to us, and that IS what the thing "is".

Emptiness, while posing as some sort of ultimate nature or being or identity, is actually the dissolving of the notion of ultimate nature or being (noun), leaving only the functional, interpenetrating 'going-on' or 'verbing' of the universe.


Greg's comments:
I agree with a lot of the OP. But I also agree with some the others here that your "raw note" allows ultimacy in the door. Ultimacy and true nature are exactly what the emptiness teachings should critique.

Here is a close, logical look at it. From your OP:

"So, according to the emptiness doctrine, the way things really are is that they are not, in their final, inner-most nature or being, any which way."

The placement of the "NOT" turns out to be very important!

There is a subtle logical issue here that seems obscure, but which makes a big difference. The issue is between "external" or "verbally-bound" or non-presuppositional versus "internal," or "nominally-bound" or presuppositional negation.

Let's use an example. There are two ways (at least) of negating a simple sentence.

Let's say the sentence is:

X is f.

One way to negate it is:

X is -f.

The other way is:

-(X is f).  Or, "It's not the case that X is f."

A more concrete example:

(S1) "The number seven is yellow."

 How can we negate S1? There are several ways.

So here is one kind of negation. It is an internal, nominally bound, pressuppositional negation.  The "NOT" is _inside_ the sentence, modifying the noun or adjective:

(Internal negation of S1) "The number seven is NOT yellow (it is blue)."

Notice that this kind of negation maintains the assumption that the number seven has a color.

Here is the other kind of negation. It is external, verbally bound, non-presuppositional. The "NOT" modifies the overall verb of the sentence:

(External negation of S1) "It's not the case that the number seven is yellow (colors don't apply to it at all)."

OK, so back to Stian's OP:

(Sop) "So, according to the emptiness doctrine, the way things really are is that they are not, in their final, inner-most nature or being, any which way."

Stian's statement (Sop) should be an external negation. It should cancel our presuppostions about things having natures at all. Instead (Sop) is an internal negation. It maintains the presupposition that things have a final, inner-most nature - it just says that the final nature is not what we thought. But in the emptiness teaching, this is what needs to go. What needs to get critiqued is the VERY IDEA of a final, inner-most nature. The very idea makes no sense.

Here is one possible "external" rephrasing of Stian's sentence, which cancels what should be cancelled:

(Gop) "So, according to the emptiness teachings, there is no way that things really are. The very idea of a final, innher-most nature is incoherent." Of course we need both kinds of negation. But we should be careful about where we are retaining presuppositions that we want to refute.....

Harry Rice:

"The Indra's Net metaphor is often misinterpreted to suggest that each jewel in the net reflects all of the other jewels in the net. Nice, but not right. Each jewel is ONLY the reflection of all of the other jewels. It has no inherent essence. It is empty."

Karmic propensity is the whole of one's experiential reality. If one feels like a changeless witness, that experience of feeling like a changeless witness IS that propensity in action, in experience... if one is seeing fully that there's only transience (the radiant flow of sights/sounds/smells/taste/touch/thoughts), that is the actualization of wisdom (of anatta).

If one sees manifestation but appears solid, that's also the view of latent tendency, that view of inherent existence in action. That very feeling of concreteness IS karmic tendency. If one sees this very presence (of any experience - sight, sound, smell, etc) is empty of any it-ness, concreteness, solidity, apparent yet empty, that very vision itself is the actualization of wisdom, it is the total exertion of wisdom, it IS wisdom. Or as Dzogchen puts it - those very five elements (space, wind, fire, water, earth) are wisdoms by nature, so experienced in its actual state, is that actualization of wisdom.

In a way, the view is the experience... every samsaric experience is the total exertion of ignorance along with the 12 links in a single moment. Occasionally ignorant view is forgotten in a peak experience, such a cessation is however non-analytical and merely a passing state, as the conditions for the re-emergence of ignorance and afflictions have not been cut off from its roots. Only the analytical cessation resulting from penetrative prajna wisdom of twofold emptiness can lead to a permanent and quantum shift of perception away from ignorance, what Lankavatara Sutra calls the "turning-about" in the deepest seat of consciousness (but again this deepest seat is not somewhere else but fully manifesting!).

So the karmic tendency, and wisdom, you've been searching for has never been elsewhere but is staring right in your face as your experiential reality all along! Funny how one doesn't see that. That very activity that is mentally fabricated but appearing real as one's only experiential reality at that given moment, just that is the spell of karmic tendency. That activity that is (experienced/seen as) luminous and empty as one's only experiential reality at that given moment is the wisdom.

I remember when Ciaran (of Ruthless Truth) saw the real fiction of self (a process of creative imagination brought into real life, a real creation based on an imaginary character) he wrote that it was a "zen on drugs" moment. Yeah, I can see why he said that!

Thusness commented, "Very good, so the dreams in dreams (http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/buddha-dharma-dream-in-dream.html). Otherwise you are seeing clarity as empty and tendencies as inherent... hiding somewhere."

Also see:

The Tendency to Extrapolate a Universal Consciousness

No Universal Mind

No Universal Mind, Part 2

Wrote in Facebook:

Yes... as for collective consciousness, no Buddhist (including Tibetan Buddhism) teachings accept the notion of a collective consciousness. A cosmic, universal, collective, over-arching consciousness is a Hindu teaching, not a Buddhist one. In Buddhism, all notions of 'universals' are pure abstractions.

Loppon Namdrol/Malcolm: "Buddhism is all its forms is strictly nominalist, and rejects all universals (samanya-artha) as being unreal abstractions."

When we investigate "consciousness" in the same way as the "weather" analogy, we completely deconstruct any notion of a consciousness in and of itself - be it universal or individual (though conventionally we can accept that consciousness is always individual and unique), but most of all, an 'inherently existing' consciousness. We do not treat 'consciousness' as any sort of a thing in the same way we do not treat 'weather' as a 'thing' - when the word 'weather' comes to mind it is immediately understood to be an imputation for the wind blowing, sun shining, clouds flowing etc. Likewise the word "consciousness" is immediately penetrated (instead of reified into an entity) and directly apprehended in immediate, direct experience as the suchness of seeing/seen-consciousness, hearing/sound-consciousness, and so forth, all of which are directly, immediately and gaplessly apprehended in its total luminous clarity.

Or as Alex Weith says in his third step,

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/...

"This also means that the first step is to disembed from impermanent phenomena until the only thing that feels real is this all pervading uncreated all pervading awareness that feels like the source and substance of phenomena. Holding on to it after this realization can hower become a subtle form of grasping diguised as letting go.

The second step is therefore to realize that this brightness, awakeness or luminosity is there very nature of phenomena and then only does the duality between the True Self and the appearences arising and passing within the Self dissolve, revealing the suchness of what is.

The next step that I found very practical is to push the process of deconstruction a step further, realizing that all that is experienced is one of the six consciousness. In other words, there is neither a super Awareness beyond phenomena, not solid material objects, but only six streams of sensory experiences. The seen, the heard, the sensed, the tasted, the smelled and the cognized (including thoughts, emotions, and subtle thougths like absorbtion states, jhanas).

At this point it is not difficult to see how relevent the Bahiya Sutta can become."


...........The fact that all notions of universals are pure abstractions is not a notion, it is a truth that can be realized in direct experience. Universals cannot be found in direct experience, ever. It is related to the truth of anatta. Universals are either abstractions born out of delusions, or abstractions spoken merely for convenience/conventional parlance/communications.

How can you appreciate "sensate facts" or the particulars/specifics of "in the seen just the seen/in the heard just the heard" if you are obscured by abstractions (including the abstraction of a universal soul, etc)? Even if you have a PCE but back in the mind you hold the view of a universal soul, i.e. an abstraction, the PCE will come and go and one will continue to rest in the view and sense of Self.

Hence, one needs to investigate, challenge, realize and penetrate all of our false views - self/Self/objects/here/now etc. By the manifestation of prajna wisdom, the veil of ignorance is released.

Only then can there be any true "intelligence" to speak of

...........

Both "self", "it" and so on are imputations. It is just like the imputation, "weather".

Thusness:

28/3/13 10:35:30 PM: Thusness: A table is just color, shapes, line, hardness, texture in touch, the sound when u hit it and being labelled
28/3/13 10:36:51 PM: Thusness: When deconstructed r just these
28/3/13 10:37:07 PM: Thusness: In direct experience

14/4/13 7:35:01 PM: Thusness: When u say "weather", does weather exist?
14/4/13 7:35:20 PM: AEN: No
14/4/13 7:35:42 PM: AEN: It's a convention imputed on a seamless activity
14/4/13 7:35:54 PM: AEN: Existence and non existence don't apply
14/4/13 7:36:02 PM: Thusness: What is the basis where this label rely on
14/4/13 7:36:16 PM: AEN: Rain clouds wind etc
14/4/13 7:36:25 PM: Thusness: Don't talk prasanga
14/4/13 7:36:36 PM: Thusness: Directly see
14/4/13 7:38:11 PM: Thusness: Rain too is a label
14/4/13 7:39:10 PM: Thusness: But in direct experience, there is no issue but when probed, u realized how one is confused abt the reification from language
14/4/13 7:39:52 PM: Thusness: And from there life/death/creation/cessation arise
14/4/13 7:40:06 PM: Thusness: And whole lots of attachment
14/4/13 7:40:25 PM: Thusness: But it does not mean there is no basis...get it?
14/4/13 7:40:45 PM: AEN: The basis is just the experience right
14/4/13 7:41:15 PM: Thusness: Yes which is plain and simple
14/4/13 7:41:50 PM: Thusness: When we say the weather is windy
14/4/13 7:42:04 PM: Thusness: Feel the wind, the blowing...
14/4/13 7:43:04 PM: Thusness: But when we look at language and mistaken verb for nouns there r big issues
14/4/13 7:43:22 PM: Thusness: So before we talk abt this and that
14/4/13 7:43:40 PM: Thusness: Understand what consciousness is and awareness is
14/4/13 7:43:45 PM: Thusness: Get it?
14/4/13 7:44:40 PM: Thusness: When we say weather, feel the sunshine, the wind, the rain
14/4/13 7:44:58 PM: Thusness: U do not search for weather
14/4/13 7:45:04 PM: Thusness: Get it?
14/4/13 7:45:57 PM: Thusness: Similarly, when we say awareness, look into scenery, sound, tactile sensations, scents and thoughts

01/04/2011

U must understand that pure vivid luminous experiences of transient manifestion r very important for both non-dual and anatta. It is key in fact. The unsupported, disjoint springing out non dually is a test on ur degree of "no self". Without the support of the second stanza, there is no true realization of anatta.

When we say "no agent", what does that mean?

It implies a practitioner has penetrate reification of whatever arises and everything is in fact presenting itself in gapless and plain simplicity. If u realized that there is "no agent" that awareness/super awareness is simply a label much like the word "weather" to denote the changing aggregates, then this insight must be also applied to "body", "mind", "weather".... How is it possible to say one has realized anatta in realizing that there is no-self yet see "weather" as having inherent existence?

Because there r certain clear experience relating to the initial arising insight of anatta, I have expressed it out in writing. If you r attached to the "words" and not see the essence, then u have missed the point.

Therefore maturing implies the clarity of insight to see "anatta" in whatever arises.

So first integrate stanza 1 and 2 and apply this insight of "anatta" to whatever arises. It is then the condition for stable maha experience of suchness.

(Note: this is still speaking from the perspective of one mind and no mind, but not the insight of anatta)

Taken from Facebook group, Transparent Being

Jackson Peterson

Awareness is the fabric of the universe or Quantum Intelligence. Whatever we have "contact" with in any way is never outside of our awareness. Can we separate any color, sound, taste, smell or feeling from awareness or consciousness? Since we can't find a border separating colors, sounds, tastes, smells and feelings from awareness... we recognize that awareness IS color, sound, taste, smell, feelings and mental phenomena.

Like · · Follow Post · October 7 at 7:41am

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• Al Garcia, Grant Tyler and 9 others like this.
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  Ted Thompson Color, sound, etc are occurances within Awareness. Awareness can witness sensations or can be free of them. Awareness is self-existent and transcendental. All thoughts and perceptions are temporary experiences within awareness and consist only of awareness, yet awareness is not identical with thoughts and perceptions.
  
  Awareness is real, timeless and unbounded. Thoughts and perceptions have no reality. Awareness is real. Thoughts and perceptions are unreal. There can be no real relationship at all between what is real and what is unreal. Refer to Gaudapada and Shankaracharya.
  
  There is a very significant "border" between the real and the unreal.

  October 7 at 9:04am · Like
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  Michael Orchard Aloha Ted...wld u say there is a "border" between the surface of a mirror and it's reflections...?

  October 7 at 4:08pm via mobile · Like · 3
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  Ted Thompson Between Awareness and the objects of awareness is a gigantic conceptual gulf. There are 5 factors in experience - Being, Awareness and Bliss on the one hand and Name and Form (thoughts and perceptions) on the other. Being, Awareness and Bliss are absolutely real, identical and more subtle than any object. All objects in awareness are fleeting, temporary, unreal, totally dependent on Awareness for their spurious ephemeral appearance.
  
  Awareness is niralambaya, totally independent of objects. There is no way whatsoever that the permanent, timeless awareness is identical with thoughts and perceptions.
  
  There is no spacial distance between the mirror and its reflections. Yet, they are hardly identical. If you think the reflections in a mirror and the mirror are identical, then I would not want to sent you to a shop to buy a mirror.
  
  All thoughts and perceptions are appearances in awareness and dependent on awareness. Awareness is self-existent and dependent on nothing. Objects cannot appear without awareness. Awareness is singular. There is ONLY awareness. There is no way in which Awareness and its objects are identical.

  October 8 at 4:34am · Edited · Like
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  Ted Thompson “Trust in awareness, in being awake, rather than in transient and unstable conditions” quoted from a Jackson Peterson post down below.

  October 8 at 4:37am · Like
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  Jackson Peterson Ted Thompson, your description implies a fundamental dualism. In that model an awareness is a separate entity from experience: like purusha and prakriti. It seems there is an enduring "thing" called awareness. However the better example is the ocean and its waves. We can't separate the waves from the ocean. Waves are the ocean. Likewise colors, sounds, perceptions etc. are waves of awareness. All experience is essentially empty. That essential emptiness reveals the true subtle nature of all experience. Experience IS awareness not that which is perceived by awareness. It's all awareness, waves of awareness with no separation between experience and the awareness. Actually experience is the awareness of it. The problem with Advaita is the imputation of a changeless Self that appears like a witness. That's an illusion. Seeing the emptiness of the Self, reveals a completely undefined dimension that can't be conceptualized by any description. It is this empty dimension of Intelligence that manifests as everything. It's not that there is some Self that stands apart and transcendently apart. The ocean is the waves. Non-dual samadhi reveals this in consciousness.

  October 8 at 5:07am via mobile · Unlike · 7
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  Jackson Peterson You are the bird chirping in the tree. You are the wind blowing through the pines. You are the sunset's brilliant colors. You are all of it! All of It!

  October 8 at 5:29am via mobile · Like · 1
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  Ted Thompson My statement is clearly non-dual. There is only Awareness.

  October 8 at 6:09am · Like
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  Ted Thompson A calm sea has no waves. Samadhi reveals consciousness without content.
  
  "The problem with Advaita is the imputation of a changeless Self that appears like a witness." This is a totally false charge.
  
  Awareness is not an appearance. Awareness does not appear at all. We can only know Awareness by being that.
  
  No advaitin has ever described Awareness as a "thing." If you want to criticise Advaita, you should first read Shankara and Gaudapada so you know what you are talking about. A good, easy simple place to start is with Shankara's Atma Bodha.
  
  "The ocean is the waves." Tell that to the creatures that live thousands of feet below the surface.

  October 8 at 6:18am · Like
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  Jackson Peterson Ted Thompson, I have studied Advaita. The problem is the notion of Self. It implies a standing apart Divinity, Brahman that is untouched by experience. Because the concept Self is the referent, it implies a subjectivity that continues and persists beyond space and time, yet in it. Awareness IS appearance. Appearance is "emptiness". Awareness is emptiness. The emptiness of appearance is the presence of awareness. Empty-Form: like a vast and infinite hologram. Nagarjuna and Madhyamaka is a good place to start...

  October 8 at 6:35am · Like · 1
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  Ted Thompson Brahman is both trancendental and immanent. It is beyond the duality of subject and object, of subjectivity and objectivity.
  
  Brahman is untouched and has nothing to stand apart from. Brahman is singular.
  
  Names and form are empty. Awareness is beyond the duality of emptiness and fullness. Awareness is the witness of emptiness and fullness, and is transcendental beyond all changing phenomena. Awareness and emptiness are both useful pointers, but emptiness is not ultimate.
  
  I am quite happy with the Advaita of the rishis, Gaudapada, Shankara, Vidyaranya, Ramakrishna, Ramana, Atmananda, Swami Krishnananda and Dayananda. The only form of Buddhism that I have much interest is genuine Dzogchen.
  
  I would only read Nagarjuna and Madhyamaka out of a historical interest. Presently I find the Upanishads and the Ashtavakra Gita to be infinitely rewarding.
  
  My first teacher was Shunru Suzuki Roshi of the San Francisco Zen Center.

  October 8 at 7:03am · Edited · Like
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  Ted Thompson Waiting for the edit button...
  
  of the SF Zen Center. I find Gaudapada and Shankara to be the most brilliant minds I have ever encountered and feel a deep sense of communion with the rishis.
  
  It is all Brahman.

  October 8 at 7:02am · Like
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  Jackson Peterson Suzuki Roshi was my teacher, at Bush St. in 1968... My Soto Dharma name is Honshin. We can leave our discussion for now. But Dzogchen is my expertise... Are you in the Dzogchen Discussion group?
  
  There is no concept like Brahman in Dzogchen.

  October 8 at 8:36am · Edited · Like

......

23/10/2013, Jackson Peterson: "there is no sense here of an awareness "behind" appearances. The empty nature of appearances IS awareness, not to be found in a separate "behind" or "within". Appearances ARE awareness glowing. The aware quality of appearances is their emptiness. There is no separate "viewer" behind as an observer. If there was we would have dualism. Knowing appearance/emptiness/awareness as one piece that includes everything in all moments is the gnostic insight. Please share this with John for his comments.,, thanks!""

......

Update:
Soh
10/27, 1:37am
Soh

Dogen: "When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you grasp things directly. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illumined the other side is dark."

....

Xue Feng said, “To comprehend this matter, it is similar to the ancient mirror – Hu comes, Hu appears; Han comes, Han appears.” Xuan Sha heard this and said, “Suddenly the mirror is broken, then how?” “Hu and Han both disappear.” Xuan Sha said, “Old monk’s heels have not touched ground yet.” Jian says instead, “Hu and Han are actualized/manifest.”

...

http://www.milwaukeezencenter.org/final/Newsletters/mzc_news_9-07.pdf

Seppo: “My concrete state is like one face of the eternal mirror. When a foreigner comes, a foreigner appears. When a Chinaman comes, a Chinaman appears. Gensa: If suddenly a clear mirror comes along, what then? Seppo: The foreigner and the Chinaman both become invisible. Gensa: I am not like that. Seppo: How is it in your case…If a clear mirror comes along, what then? Gensa: Smashed into hundreds of bits and pieces.” Dôgen comments: “…the truth should be expressed like that.”


http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/four-views-of-chan.html

Ven Sheng Yen

This is not the ultimate state, because if you have nothing but awareness of the environment and there is no self apparent, there must still be a self to be aware of the environment. Someone who is in this state is certainly in a unified state, because there seems to be no self and only the environment seems to exist. This is called the state of "one mind," but still it is not Ch'an. There must be "no mind' if it is to be Ch'an.

A true Ch'an state should not be compared to an all-reflecting mirror. All things exists without the mirror. In this state everything is seen very clearly, but there is no concept of outside or inside, existing or not existing, having or not having.
Sunday
Jackson Peterson
10/27, 8:34am
Jackson Peterson

Ah... I see! It can never be found as other than this. It has no shape or form or existence of its own other than "this". There is not something appearing in a knowing awareness. Rather the knowing awareness has no other "private" existence other than as this. This moment is always its best shot!
Sunday
Jackson Peterson
10/27, 6:45pm
Jackson Peterson

Interesting... its clear there is no "perceiver" or "experiencer" there just vivid experience. The idea of a "mirror like awareness" is placing an intermediary in the middle. The "intermediary" actually is a projection of mind: the witness or self. There is only direct experience as what It is. There is no observer of it. There is no awareness of it. It's completely direct. I see now what you have been trying to point out. Your Shen Yen link was instrumental in pointing this out.

Jackson Peterson
10/28, 4:14am
Jackson Peterson

Just posted this on your blog:

I think Soh makes a valid point: there is no reason to impute "awareness" to be an ontological entity that perceives. The Buddha Nature is a perception complete in its moment. Awareness is the vividness of experience not a perceiver or observer of it. There is no middle man perceiving, other than the one imagined by the the mind. Otherwise we still have a subtle empty self called "awareness" that "has" experiences. Awareness should be used as a descriptive term not one implying a subject that is aware. This fortunately or unfortunately shatters the mirror that was only believed to be there....


9/11/2013