09-24-2010, 12:00 AM
“The idea of a self that originated (is born) just does not hold up to logic, the very means that was believed to give it validity in the first place. That’s when you begin to smell a rat, when you see that even the logic it’s founded on is not logical.”
Ah yes. This was the spark for me. I love logic as a tool and use it to…devour itself. I also enjoy sitting or meditation. Action/Surrender.
Use logic to devour itself, that’s great! One of my favorite examples of this, which is just a mental exercise of revealing logic rather than something of spiritual implication, is to examine finite and infinity. Poe wrote about this in Eureka. Poe was quite a metaphysical pioneer for his time and culture. He wrote that we cannot comprehend either finity or infinity. We only imagine we can. Such as we imagine space continuing infinitely and then conclude we have grasped infinity, but we only followed the visual of expanding space for a few moments in the mind’s eye and ended the visualization with the idea it continued forever, of which we could never witness first-hand because we would have to hold our view of it for infinity, lol.
Then he talks about finity. That we find it impossible to imagine an end to space, because we visualize the perimeters but see a darkness beyond the borders, which defines the borders of finite space, but truly that darkness is seeing “something” rather than “nothing”. If space ends we should see beyond it “no-space” but we cannot do this! He then points out that we reject finity, for this reason, as a possibility because we find it a greater impossibility than infinity. But adds at the end of his discourse, how can one impossible thing be any more or less impossible than another? If two things are impossible, that impossibleness is equally impossible! So he’s just saying we grasp neither infinity or finity, but logic tells us we have grasped infinity so we choose it as a means to explain the universe, thinking we have truly experienced it, then become apathetic about this logic so as to accept it without examination. But spatially speaking, both infinity and finity are equally unexperiencable, so both impossible. Logic merely chooses to endorse one over the other. Logic can be very flimsy and is in many many cases. So using logic to devour itself is something I do too because it’s so effective, probably what logic is best for…outdoing itself.
“But, why not both as realities? Why is it even felt there is a need to decide”?
Key point here, indeed. Dualism. Good/bad, right/wrong, action/result. We live in a dualistic world and it’s helpful to understand this…it’s just that it’s not the entire picture.
I want to delve very briefly into human history here. It’s good if only in the metaphorical sense, the myths of story-telling that convey otherwise intangible understanding…
In prehistoric times there were clans and the need to separate from neighboring clans, so each developed a unique view of reality and then children born into the clans were taught that ideology so that it became a normal view of reality that would reject other views of reality as “unreal”. So it was an intentional wish to make one reality real and other realities (of other clans) un-real, as a means of protecting and nurturing individual clans by identification and solidification of them. For example, one clan may have designated a certain tree sacred, an nearby clan may have dismissed that clans claim and said instead the mountain nearby was sacred. So the children of the first clan worship the tree and not the mountain and the other clan the opposite. If you asked these children, and even ask them as adults, “why do you worship this particular object?” they would reply simply “because it IS sacred. And the other object of the other clan is not.”
In modern times there not many strict clans because they have long ago expanded populations and have become cultures moreso. So cultures did the same thing as clans but due to large numbers began to diversify, and it became harder to contain “one view” of reality. This threat lead to many wars, the fear of one culture being changed by another, a fear akin to death itself, losing what is sacred (the identity of clan or culture).
Now is a very interesting time, very very interesting, lol. The global economy almost prevents wars like of previous times occurring, all the most populated cultures have become interdependent on trade and livelihood. So despite their differences, instead of warring they are forced to negotiate. As they negotiate they are compelled to incorporate these alternate realities in order to get along. So, on a mass scale notions of reality are expanding so that many are currently learning to embrace alternate realities as being equally real. It’s the old world beliefs that held the view of one reality against all others as false, and this view is dying out, by necessity and expansion.
As a result, the dualistic view now seems less evident. Such as, there is good, bad, semi-good, semi-bad, neutral, empathetic, on and on. Neutral would be not caring about good or bad, and empathetic is to see both good and bad in the light of understanding. There is also observational (scientific), which cares to observe, is not neutral or apathetic, nor caring and empathetic, but rather curious to learn but not attached. So these are like thought nations, each different but not completely distinct, they all reflect each other and can be transitioned into the next (and hybrided). In an evolutionary sense (mythical sense) we are learning to incorporate all perceived realities into the expanse of reality being experience itself rather than a specific truth that would disclaim other truths. And this has the effect of freeing perception (losing anchoring).
"Its not that we should not be concerned about death, its that we should unravel the twisted version of reality that holds us in fear and thus a control that is not our own doing. The fear will drive us, but we reach a point where fear no longer drives us when we no longer fear dying. Suffering can still motivate us then. Unlike fear, which is an unwanted outcome of events, suffering is what’s happening here and now. So the wish to end all suffering becomes more prominent than the previous fear. Both were useful allies so both are functional and aid in evolution. And death as an adviser works when a sense of self is intact as an active idea, once that is vanquished completely though, suffering becomes the next hurdle. Maybe it does not happen quite like one after the other, but more often simultaneously. But I do believe that suffering is the last obstacle rather than death. So after we lose death as an advisor, we still have suffering as an advisor and we keep pressing for evolution away from it.”
Agreed.
Death occurs always in a here/now environment. Death is never related to our ideas of the future, present and past. Nor is it to our idea of here and there. Death, as an energetic phenomenon, compresses all of our five measuring units into one. The energetic shock brought about by this is of such magnitude that our life force is dissolved, unable to keep our energetic fields together anymore.
As to suffering, it is indeed an obstacle!
Does death really occur though? Because if there was never a beginning, there is not enduring and cannot end. What ever began so as to die? When did we begin, can we pinpoint that?
I know visually we view death, but experientially, do we? A phrase I’ve heard before “we die in every moment”. Well if we died in one moment, we would not be around to know it in the next!
SHM: Dreaming is used to move it; Stalking is used to anchor it.
WEI: Great insight!
Now here’s a question for you: Do you see any way we can we get beyond these two precepts? And, if so, how?
SHM: Well, I don’t know. I’m wondering if there’s a need to get beyond these. How about this idea. Perform ‘inception’ on ourselves in Dreaming, plant a new idea within ourselves? Not good or bad, just an expanding of our awareness, pushing further…
I say there is a need to get beyond the precepts, and the inception you describe does relate to this. Expanding rather than choosing. Choosing is the ancestral way of our predecessors (choosing one sacred path over another which is seen as not sacred by comparison), as a survival mechanism (clans). Expanding is the effect of that cause that could not maintain the original desire for separation (just as populations expanded and diversified) because within that desire was the seed seeking unity (at first in the clan, but eventually unity of all). So the reason to get beyond the two precepts is to get beyond the limitations of choosing concepts of unity (faulty logic) that are not all inclusive, and thus not actually unity. Furthermore, the reason that there is the option of experiencing unity directly then. Thought is one of the 5 aggregates of which arises ignorance, so to transcend beyond thought-dominance that has defined perimeters of faulty logic. Inception is a thought, with it comes an effect. But to be immune to inception (cause and effect) completely, ironically we use the inception to do this. Logic to devour itself.
“But for a person on the path of liberating all this, understanding the hidden core Lex alludes to is essential”!
Speaking of Lex, where’s he at?
Yes, I know, I love reading his posts too. Com’mon Lex, give us some more of your insights here : ) When you have time of course… I saw he did post a new thread though. *update, I see Lex that you have posted here since I was writing this in Word, so look forward to reading your post.
“Essence as I'm referring to it is anything which evokes fear of death. But its not something feared at first, essence is at first loved, adored by all who conceive of it, until certain thoughts, inceptions, occur and seem to pose a threat to the essence so beloved. This essence takes different forms depending on the awareness of the one experiencing it. The fact that it takes so many forms gives it a quality of being something truly unique, but again fear stalks it constantly. The uniqueness is the pleasure derived from it even if short-lived. Pain (fear) is endured only because of its (essence's) promising fulfillment (which never arrives) of security”.
Fear of death is certainly present. I’ll also say that fear of no-self comes into play once the fear of death is understood. Once again, another obstacle
When you say here “fear of no-self”, this seems to correlate to what I described to you as fear of losing essence. So if we understand there is no essence (no self) yet we exist anyway, the fear cannot be present. Its only when essence is perceived as something created that fear becomes an active dynamic (stalks).
As to pain…would you say fear is the action that leads to pain, the result?
Fear certainly leads to suffering. Pain in physical body, result of fear?, quite possible. We have all probably heard of spiritual adepts who vanquished pain. What comes to mind are the Buddhist monks who burned themselves in protest of the Vietnam war. The first of them was a Mahayana Buddhist named Quang Duc.
He poured gas on and lit himself on fire and sat in lotus position while engulfed in flames. Really amazing. Imagine the pain it would (should) have caused. Any who suffers from pain, and consequently, fear of pain, would indeed imagine this pain upon witnessing his act. But for the monk, that imagining was not necessarily what he experienced. I was reading at Wiki that afterwards, after they re-cremated his remains, they saw his heart was intact (not burned). This symbolized to many Buddhists the power of his compassion and they then revered him as a bodhisattva, but I digress : )
Aaron Niemzovitch, a chess master, once said that the threat is stronger than the execution. This is a basic principle, which has been corroborated by centuries of practice. Extrapolating this to the everyday world, it could be said that fear of pain is stronger than pain itself.
Interesting. Being that he is a chess master, he would have taken logic to its limits, analyzed every angle, which I’m saying is good. It’s what Nagarjuna was good at doing as well. Logic is only an impediment when it’s claims are accepted, yet at the same time, go unexamined.
There is no spiritual pain. There is only physical pain. The social order's last line of defense is sustained on weapons that cause physical pain and death. The only interest of "spiritual" or mental pain, in terms of this conspiracy, is that it eventually develops into physical pain.
Interesting as well! Control sought via pain. Control sought because of suffering seeking release. The oppressors suffer and in their pain perpetuate more pain upon others in hopes that control will bring them relief. So clearly they are victims of the inception too. And the inception employed would be one that would twist the awareness of spiritual truth away from being painless (free of suffering), so that instead its perceived as pain and turned away from (feared). This can be done using mental imagery (images of people burning in hell realms for example).
In Dependent Origination we see that all phenomena arises interdependently, form, thought, sensation, perception , consciousness are not separate things that could stand alone but rather occur dependent upon the other, so no one takes precedence. Why is this important to understand? Because things have been misconstrued. For example, the spiritual is given precedence over the physical (soul supposedly resides in spiritual). Inserted into this idea is a spiritual ruler (God) who created essences of souls of beings and then from there is built in notions of reward or punishment. Because the “God” has precedence via inception of the idea, awareness of the interdependent truth (no precedence) will be forgotten or remain unknown.
And it’s this awareness of interdependence that would release the suffering view of a perceived oppressor who “created” us. I know many would argue God (or creator in general) is not an oppressor, and I’d say the image and idolatry surrounding God is, because notice how its believed one has to obtain admission into spiritual “realms” be it heaven or whatever name via God’s permission, always there is this stipulation of “qualifying”. We have dependently arisen and are already qualified because we never were created by a being who would qualify or deny such. We are unborn. My mentioning God here does not dismiss non-believers predicament because always there is a view of essence and creation established whether one is religious or atheist. For CC it was the eagle, for example.
You say there is no spiritual pain, which helps to explain how a monk can light himself on fire and sit motionless whist he burns, a testament to his awareness. But, the question arises, that when we say spiritual, what are we really referring to? What does that term really mean experientially speaking? For the monk who burned without exhibiting pain, was his form spiritual then?
Ok, SHM, I am enjoying this insight exchange immensely. I just want you to know, given how long these posts are, and that we all have lives outside the forum, if it takes you a while to respond or if not, either way I understand and its no problem for me to wait etc. Also, on weekends I am less likely to have time to respond, so may not hear from me till the weekday.
Ah yes. This was the spark for me. I love logic as a tool and use it to…devour itself. I also enjoy sitting or meditation. Action/Surrender.
Use logic to devour itself, that’s great! One of my favorite examples of this, which is just a mental exercise of revealing logic rather than something of spiritual implication, is to examine finite and infinity. Poe wrote about this in Eureka. Poe was quite a metaphysical pioneer for his time and culture. He wrote that we cannot comprehend either finity or infinity. We only imagine we can. Such as we imagine space continuing infinitely and then conclude we have grasped infinity, but we only followed the visual of expanding space for a few moments in the mind’s eye and ended the visualization with the idea it continued forever, of which we could never witness first-hand because we would have to hold our view of it for infinity, lol.
Then he talks about finity. That we find it impossible to imagine an end to space, because we visualize the perimeters but see a darkness beyond the borders, which defines the borders of finite space, but truly that darkness is seeing “something” rather than “nothing”. If space ends we should see beyond it “no-space” but we cannot do this! He then points out that we reject finity, for this reason, as a possibility because we find it a greater impossibility than infinity. But adds at the end of his discourse, how can one impossible thing be any more or less impossible than another? If two things are impossible, that impossibleness is equally impossible! So he’s just saying we grasp neither infinity or finity, but logic tells us we have grasped infinity so we choose it as a means to explain the universe, thinking we have truly experienced it, then become apathetic about this logic so as to accept it without examination. But spatially speaking, both infinity and finity are equally unexperiencable, so both impossible. Logic merely chooses to endorse one over the other. Logic can be very flimsy and is in many many cases. So using logic to devour itself is something I do too because it’s so effective, probably what logic is best for…outdoing itself.
“But, why not both as realities? Why is it even felt there is a need to decide”?
Key point here, indeed. Dualism. Good/bad, right/wrong, action/result. We live in a dualistic world and it’s helpful to understand this…it’s just that it’s not the entire picture.
I want to delve very briefly into human history here. It’s good if only in the metaphorical sense, the myths of story-telling that convey otherwise intangible understanding…
In prehistoric times there were clans and the need to separate from neighboring clans, so each developed a unique view of reality and then children born into the clans were taught that ideology so that it became a normal view of reality that would reject other views of reality as “unreal”. So it was an intentional wish to make one reality real and other realities (of other clans) un-real, as a means of protecting and nurturing individual clans by identification and solidification of them. For example, one clan may have designated a certain tree sacred, an nearby clan may have dismissed that clans claim and said instead the mountain nearby was sacred. So the children of the first clan worship the tree and not the mountain and the other clan the opposite. If you asked these children, and even ask them as adults, “why do you worship this particular object?” they would reply simply “because it IS sacred. And the other object of the other clan is not.”
In modern times there not many strict clans because they have long ago expanded populations and have become cultures moreso. So cultures did the same thing as clans but due to large numbers began to diversify, and it became harder to contain “one view” of reality. This threat lead to many wars, the fear of one culture being changed by another, a fear akin to death itself, losing what is sacred (the identity of clan or culture).
Now is a very interesting time, very very interesting, lol. The global economy almost prevents wars like of previous times occurring, all the most populated cultures have become interdependent on trade and livelihood. So despite their differences, instead of warring they are forced to negotiate. As they negotiate they are compelled to incorporate these alternate realities in order to get along. So, on a mass scale notions of reality are expanding so that many are currently learning to embrace alternate realities as being equally real. It’s the old world beliefs that held the view of one reality against all others as false, and this view is dying out, by necessity and expansion.
As a result, the dualistic view now seems less evident. Such as, there is good, bad, semi-good, semi-bad, neutral, empathetic, on and on. Neutral would be not caring about good or bad, and empathetic is to see both good and bad in the light of understanding. There is also observational (scientific), which cares to observe, is not neutral or apathetic, nor caring and empathetic, but rather curious to learn but not attached. So these are like thought nations, each different but not completely distinct, they all reflect each other and can be transitioned into the next (and hybrided). In an evolutionary sense (mythical sense) we are learning to incorporate all perceived realities into the expanse of reality being experience itself rather than a specific truth that would disclaim other truths. And this has the effect of freeing perception (losing anchoring).
"Its not that we should not be concerned about death, its that we should unravel the twisted version of reality that holds us in fear and thus a control that is not our own doing. The fear will drive us, but we reach a point where fear no longer drives us when we no longer fear dying. Suffering can still motivate us then. Unlike fear, which is an unwanted outcome of events, suffering is what’s happening here and now. So the wish to end all suffering becomes more prominent than the previous fear. Both were useful allies so both are functional and aid in evolution. And death as an adviser works when a sense of self is intact as an active idea, once that is vanquished completely though, suffering becomes the next hurdle. Maybe it does not happen quite like one after the other, but more often simultaneously. But I do believe that suffering is the last obstacle rather than death. So after we lose death as an advisor, we still have suffering as an advisor and we keep pressing for evolution away from it.”
Agreed.
Death occurs always in a here/now environment. Death is never related to our ideas of the future, present and past. Nor is it to our idea of here and there. Death, as an energetic phenomenon, compresses all of our five measuring units into one. The energetic shock brought about by this is of such magnitude that our life force is dissolved, unable to keep our energetic fields together anymore.
As to suffering, it is indeed an obstacle!
Does death really occur though? Because if there was never a beginning, there is not enduring and cannot end. What ever began so as to die? When did we begin, can we pinpoint that?
I know visually we view death, but experientially, do we? A phrase I’ve heard before “we die in every moment”. Well if we died in one moment, we would not be around to know it in the next!
SHM: Dreaming is used to move it; Stalking is used to anchor it.
WEI: Great insight!
Now here’s a question for you: Do you see any way we can we get beyond these two precepts? And, if so, how?
SHM: Well, I don’t know. I’m wondering if there’s a need to get beyond these. How about this idea. Perform ‘inception’ on ourselves in Dreaming, plant a new idea within ourselves? Not good or bad, just an expanding of our awareness, pushing further…
I say there is a need to get beyond the precepts, and the inception you describe does relate to this. Expanding rather than choosing. Choosing is the ancestral way of our predecessors (choosing one sacred path over another which is seen as not sacred by comparison), as a survival mechanism (clans). Expanding is the effect of that cause that could not maintain the original desire for separation (just as populations expanded and diversified) because within that desire was the seed seeking unity (at first in the clan, but eventually unity of all). So the reason to get beyond the two precepts is to get beyond the limitations of choosing concepts of unity (faulty logic) that are not all inclusive, and thus not actually unity. Furthermore, the reason that there is the option of experiencing unity directly then. Thought is one of the 5 aggregates of which arises ignorance, so to transcend beyond thought-dominance that has defined perimeters of faulty logic. Inception is a thought, with it comes an effect. But to be immune to inception (cause and effect) completely, ironically we use the inception to do this. Logic to devour itself.
“But for a person on the path of liberating all this, understanding the hidden core Lex alludes to is essential”!
Speaking of Lex, where’s he at?
Yes, I know, I love reading his posts too. Com’mon Lex, give us some more of your insights here : ) When you have time of course… I saw he did post a new thread though. *update, I see Lex that you have posted here since I was writing this in Word, so look forward to reading your post.
“Essence as I'm referring to it is anything which evokes fear of death. But its not something feared at first, essence is at first loved, adored by all who conceive of it, until certain thoughts, inceptions, occur and seem to pose a threat to the essence so beloved. This essence takes different forms depending on the awareness of the one experiencing it. The fact that it takes so many forms gives it a quality of being something truly unique, but again fear stalks it constantly. The uniqueness is the pleasure derived from it even if short-lived. Pain (fear) is endured only because of its (essence's) promising fulfillment (which never arrives) of security”.
Fear of death is certainly present. I’ll also say that fear of no-self comes into play once the fear of death is understood. Once again, another obstacle
When you say here “fear of no-self”, this seems to correlate to what I described to you as fear of losing essence. So if we understand there is no essence (no self) yet we exist anyway, the fear cannot be present. Its only when essence is perceived as something created that fear becomes an active dynamic (stalks).
As to pain…would you say fear is the action that leads to pain, the result?
Fear certainly leads to suffering. Pain in physical body, result of fear?, quite possible. We have all probably heard of spiritual adepts who vanquished pain. What comes to mind are the Buddhist monks who burned themselves in protest of the Vietnam war. The first of them was a Mahayana Buddhist named Quang Duc.
He poured gas on and lit himself on fire and sat in lotus position while engulfed in flames. Really amazing. Imagine the pain it would (should) have caused. Any who suffers from pain, and consequently, fear of pain, would indeed imagine this pain upon witnessing his act. But for the monk, that imagining was not necessarily what he experienced. I was reading at Wiki that afterwards, after they re-cremated his remains, they saw his heart was intact (not burned). This symbolized to many Buddhists the power of his compassion and they then revered him as a bodhisattva, but I digress : )
Aaron Niemzovitch, a chess master, once said that the threat is stronger than the execution. This is a basic principle, which has been corroborated by centuries of practice. Extrapolating this to the everyday world, it could be said that fear of pain is stronger than pain itself.
Interesting. Being that he is a chess master, he would have taken logic to its limits, analyzed every angle, which I’m saying is good. It’s what Nagarjuna was good at doing as well. Logic is only an impediment when it’s claims are accepted, yet at the same time, go unexamined.
There is no spiritual pain. There is only physical pain. The social order's last line of defense is sustained on weapons that cause physical pain and death. The only interest of "spiritual" or mental pain, in terms of this conspiracy, is that it eventually develops into physical pain.
Interesting as well! Control sought via pain. Control sought because of suffering seeking release. The oppressors suffer and in their pain perpetuate more pain upon others in hopes that control will bring them relief. So clearly they are victims of the inception too. And the inception employed would be one that would twist the awareness of spiritual truth away from being painless (free of suffering), so that instead its perceived as pain and turned away from (feared). This can be done using mental imagery (images of people burning in hell realms for example).
In Dependent Origination we see that all phenomena arises interdependently, form, thought, sensation, perception , consciousness are not separate things that could stand alone but rather occur dependent upon the other, so no one takes precedence. Why is this important to understand? Because things have been misconstrued. For example, the spiritual is given precedence over the physical (soul supposedly resides in spiritual). Inserted into this idea is a spiritual ruler (God) who created essences of souls of beings and then from there is built in notions of reward or punishment. Because the “God” has precedence via inception of the idea, awareness of the interdependent truth (no precedence) will be forgotten or remain unknown.
And it’s this awareness of interdependence that would release the suffering view of a perceived oppressor who “created” us. I know many would argue God (or creator in general) is not an oppressor, and I’d say the image and idolatry surrounding God is, because notice how its believed one has to obtain admission into spiritual “realms” be it heaven or whatever name via God’s permission, always there is this stipulation of “qualifying”. We have dependently arisen and are already qualified because we never were created by a being who would qualify or deny such. We are unborn. My mentioning God here does not dismiss non-believers predicament because always there is a view of essence and creation established whether one is religious or atheist. For CC it was the eagle, for example.
You say there is no spiritual pain, which helps to explain how a monk can light himself on fire and sit motionless whist he burns, a testament to his awareness. But, the question arises, that when we say spiritual, what are we really referring to? What does that term really mean experientially speaking? For the monk who burned without exhibiting pain, was his form spiritual then?
Ok, SHM, I am enjoying this insight exchange immensely. I just want you to know, given how long these posts are, and that we all have lives outside the forum, if it takes you a while to respond or if not, either way I understand and its no problem for me to wait etc. Also, on weekends I am less likely to have time to respond, so may not hear from me till the weekday.